Preschool

I've argued before that educators are continually trying to expand the time kids spend in school, through longer school years, longer days, and of course, universal preschool. Preschools are also becoming less about play, and more about academics. An article from Michigan included this:

With state education curriculum requirements becoming more stringent for all grades, it's essential that children receive some kind of preschool experience, [preschool coordinator Jan] Brock said.

"Preschool is so important because kindergarten requirements have increased," she said.

"We have an opportunity to provide them with experience to help them prepare for kindergarten. We want them to have a quality preschool experience to help prepare them for success in school."

Or, from New York state:

Many children who complete preschool programs do not have readiness skills required by the New York State Department of Education. "We have experienced significant change during the past few years," said Rosmarie Bovino, deputy superintendent of schools. "What used to be taught in first grade is now being taught in pre-K. In the past, pre-K was viewed as a time for learning social skills, with playtime being the primary activity. That is no longer true."

The district has met with local preschool teachers to discuss state standards, particularly math and reading, and provided copies of the recently released New York State math and English language arts curriculum materials.

I guess they are abandoning the social skills development purpose of preschool in favor of just making it like normal school, with curriculum requirements and the whole nine yards. So I suppose the next thing will be "Enroll your infant in our preschool readiness program, before they fall behind in socialization!"

A recent study looked at over 14,000 kindergarteners from across the nation, measured their academic abilities and their social skills, and recorded whether or not they had attended preschool. It did find that those who had attended preschool tended to test higher on pre-reading and math skills:

The study... shows that preschooled children from the poorest families would score 8 and 9 percentile points higher on standardized pre-reading and math tests, respectively, than children who stayed at home. Children from middle-class families made 5 percent gains in language and math compared to their peers who did not attend preschool, and children from upper-income families made modest gains in language.

In other words, preschool has little academic benefit for children from higher-income families (whose parents usually have higher education levels). "Modest" is usually code for "not statistically significant" or "miniscule to the point of being irrelevant." Higher income families are more likely to send their kids to preschool, and their kids do better in school-- but according to this study, their kids don't do better because of preschool. It's just that preschool attendance and academic performance have a common cause: higher socioeconomic status.

True, kids from lower income families have improved test scores if they have attended preschool, although:

Margaret Bridges, co-author of the study and director of child development at the institute, acknowledged the study showed that disparities in early cognitive development between children from wealthy backgrounds and children from lower economic backgrounds would not necessarily decrease, and that the gap could be addressed by prioritizing resources for certain at-risk groups.

"With limited resources to invest in preschool programs, I think it's important to focus the resources on the kids that are having the most trouble with achievement," she said.

In other words, you might send the lowest income kids to preschool but not send the higher income kids, and then you might have a better shot at removing the disparities in academic achievement. Only I think we know that higher income families are not going to keep their kids out of preschool, so only universal compulsory public preschools will seem like a real solution to public educators.

The study also looked at social skills. I don't have to tell any other homeschoolers, positively fatigued by people bringing up socialization concerns, how pleasantly ironic the study's results are:

Black children who attended preschool lagged in social development compared to black children who did not attend preschool, while white and Hispanic children showed almost no decrease compared to children of the same ethnicity who did not attend preschool.

All economic groups showed less social development compared to stay-at-home children, except those from middle-income families, who were not socially affected by attending preschool.

So, to recap: at best, preschool didn't affect social development. But for most kids, it impeded their social development. I would love to carry some sort of study results abstract around with me to hand over to people who bring up social development as a knee-jerk first reaction to hearing that we're homeschoolers, but in my heart I know it wouldn't make any difference. The study article goes on:

But some educators believe preschool helps children's social growth.

"I totally don't believe the (results on social development)," said Jennifer Lage, a teacher at Sheffield Preschool in Berkeley. "I think socially, that's one of the main reasons to put your child in preschool, for them to gain some social skills early on."

"Socialization" through schooling is a matter of theology with some people; it is unassailable. Never mind what the data say.