Educators focus on pre-kindergarten to promote literacy

It really upsets me that these programs that are being created are only assisting Low income families. I wanted to enroll my daughter in preschool but the district tells me I have to be in a low income program KidsNCare. Basically, I didn't qualify because according to them I don't need help and therefore I couldn't enroll at a district preschool. They recommended I register her at a private preschool; which I didn't want that because I don't need DAY CARE. I wanted her to start her education, since they say preschool is very important.

It should be the parents doing this.Read to your kids,play fun educational games,sesame street.Its actually pretty easy.Board games it teaches them to count at an early age.Around 7 make them read something anything daily,newspaper,subscribe to a simple magazine.Its an investment of your time as a parent that is worth it when they get older

If the cutoff date for entrance to Kindergarten were June 1, instead of December 1, most of these problems would resolve thmselves. Many K kids are just too young. Take your child to the beach, museums and plays. Read to your child and talk about colors, shapes, and patterns. For Pete's Sake, let little kids be little kids.Once your child enters school, the main focus will be getting the scores up and teaching your child to fill in bubbles on a test form.

Lets begin the "brain washing" earlier in life, these "educators" again are speculating on what would work best for kids. There are so many variables on what makes a student successful in school and starting earlier may not be a total answer to the problem. Ask any middle or high school teacher and you see how the behavior of students is one of the main distractions to learning.

Unless parents provide a strong foundation from home it become a greater challenge for any teacher to help students be successful. How about also giving parents some choice in where they can send their kids for their education?

I agree with all the above people.
Kids in norhern Europe starts later and have often been been ahead of our kids.
I always seen this as tax paid baby sitter.
Educators are the ones who have most to gain

Not a Low Income Parent wrote:

It really upsets me that these programs that are being created are only assisting Low income families. I wanted to enroll my daughter in preschool but the district tells me I have to be in a low income program KidsNCare. Basically, I didn't qualify because according to them I don't need help and therefore I couldn't enroll at a district preschool. They recommended I register her at a private preschool; which I didn't want that because I don't need DAY CARE. I wanted her to start her education, since they say preschool is very important.

I totally agree with you. Why is all the focus on "low income". Alot of parents arent concidered low income because they actually go out and work instead of sitting on their rears collecting welfare. Many of these hard working parents barely get by. Any parent should want the best for their child. I also agree with other posters that kids should be kids.

I agree with all the posters above, Unfortunately you are Preaching to the Choir, as probably most of the " low income " parents don't spend a lot of time reading, much less reading up on current events.

This is all just another flop just like the no child left behind debacle. I know a third grade teacher and that teacher relates stories about second graders coming into the class that can't even read at a first grade level. The no child left behind program dictates that the child must continue up the grade levels no matter what. A teacher cannot address the problem on their own due to the restraints of the no child left behind mandates. The teacher either complies with the mandate and lets the child move up a grade or sneaks around the system to help the child and possibly face sanctions if caught by the administration. The methods that they have to follow do little to address the problems of the individual child.

And the children of working middle class parents get left in the dust because thier parents make too much to qualify for assistance with paying for pre-school yet don't make enough to be able to afford the high costs of pre-school. Another question I ask myself, why do I work my behind off just to be left taking care of someone else and thier "low income" children.

Yeah and if the low income dont work (I know some do) then why do they need day care to begin with?

Vouchers, teacher accountability, and parents taking onus for their children's education.

I went to public school (Claremont High) after 9 years of private school (Catholic). Even going to one of the best public schools in the area and taking the AP courses presented there; the fact is I learned everything I was going to before tenth Grade. Although I was supposedly in the College geared curriculum at Claremont, my tenth grade year was a repeat of six grade, eleventh a repeat of seventh so on and so forth. I can only imagine what they teach at Ganesha or Pomona. Sad, really. I had plenty of teachers at Claremont say simply that it didnt matter to them if the material was comprehended by the students or not, they were still going to get paid, and short of committing sexual assault on a student or collegue, termination simply does not exist. If I have kids, they are going to attend a school that still believes more in Phonics and less on self-esteem (Self-Esteem should be based on what one does, not on what one believes one's self to be) and other psyco-babble nonsense.

What a crock! Kids learn most of the same stuff over decent PBS TV programs like Sesame Street (on for about 40 years now, thanks to forward thinkers and very modest public funding; it’s even on in Spanish for over 30 years). PBS should AND usually IS working for us and for our children; its early childhood education programs could be further expanded for relatively low costs. However, many parents don’t even accept the responsibility to monitor what their young kids are watching. Seems like those kids might be likely to enter kindergarten with ‘learning deficits’. Resources wasted… by the parents, but there is no accountability demanded of them, as long as the kid has no gaping wounds or visible bruises!

No need to leave this continent to find schools that seriously identify and reward academic achievement. Most schools in Mexico have a test at the end of each grade, determining whether students will pass or repeat the grade the following year. Cold hearted? Maybe, but consider this… do you really want your own 5th grade child in a class where half of the students of the students can’t even pass a test of basic 2nd grade skills, but the district has a policy that no child will have to repeat more than one year?

Surprise… most of our local districts quietly operate under that premise. Therefore, large numbers of the students entering high school each year have ‘flunked’ every year, but they’ve just been “passed” on. Then it’s the high school teachers who are charged with the responsibility of getting the students to learn in 4 years, what they didn’t pick up in the first 9-10 years, plus… get a good high school education. Our schools are required to offer (at no charge) academic tutoring, to all students who test below ‘proficient’ in basic subjects, notably language & math. Most high schools can’t get over 10% of the identified low-performing students to even show up for the free tutoring, so the responsibilities for student failures do extend far beyond the schoolyard fence.

Re. the western European educational models. They don’t tolerate the seriously dysfunctional classroom disturbances that public school students and educators in California are forced to endure. BTW neither do private schools here, including the relatively low-cost and church-subsidized parochials.

The Euro-kids, like their American counterparts, are encouraged to achieve the best they can, but the Euro systems don’t operate under the silly illusion that all students should graduate from high school and then go off to a university or college, in successful pursuit of at least a bachelor’s degree. Most of the western European high-school-age students are actually enrolled in something the California public schools have now quietly abandoned… serious vocational education. California schools have dumped voc. ed. largely to cover costs of more remedial math and language classes, often for students who have no intrinsic or familial motivation to learn either. Community colleges and the Cal State University campuses do likewise. Biggest losers of the flight away from public schools’ voc. ed. programs are students with otherwise low academic motivation, small businesses who are faced with heavier on-the-job training costs for employees, and taxpayers footing part of the bill for unemployment. Biggest winners in the public school voc.ed. deficit:
1) private for-profit voc. ed. schools: expensive, some with government subsidies, and simply not available to many potential students of low income or non-legal resident status; and
2) the remaining large employers whose lobbyists year-after-year convince Congress to allow in thousands of low-wage foreign workers on H-1B visas, claiming that there aren’t enough American workers available for certain specific job classifications.

Let’s put the money where it works FOR the students and the public interest.

Kids are urged to grow up soon enough!! The more pressure we put on kids the more at younger and younger ages the more "ADD and ADHD" children we are going to have. Let them enjoy life!!!

Hopefully this program will be successful. We have to start giving them quality education at a very young age and parents should also play a major role in developing their child's literacy and reading skills. As a parent we should also see that our kids are enjoying what they are doing.

Arrowhead Farms wrote:

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I totally agree with you. Why is all the focus on "low income". Alot of parents arent concidered low income because they actually go out and work instead of sitting on their rears collecting welfare. Many of these hard working parents barely get by. Any parent should want the best for their child. I also agree with other posters that kids should be kids.

Agree, my co-worker tells me she is the only parent in her son's preschool who pays 100% of her son's tuition. All the other parents get some type of assistance.
That's about 50 kids. Crazy! It has come down to our public schools and day care centers catering to low-income families. And what makes it worse is that most of these kids get no parenting from their parents. They're allowed to do as they please, which includes running around in the streets most of the time, getting involved in gangs and drugs. I know this is not true for all, but just hang out in a low-income neighborhood for awhile and see for yourself.

Jane Taxpayer wrote:

<quoted text>
Agree, my co-worker tells me she is the only parent in her son's preschool who pays 100% of her son's tuition. All the other parents get some type of assistance.
That's about 50 kids. Crazy! It has come down to our public schools and day care centers catering to low-income families. And what makes it worse is that most of these kids get no parenting from their parents. They're allowed to do as they please, which includes running around in the streets most of the time, getting involved in gangs and drugs. I know this is not true for all, but just hang out in a low-income neighborhood for awhile and see for yourself.

Your last statement shows why its needed.If that helps well it lessons your tax burden later.50% graduation rates in these hs in the area.Those people will be looking for help soon the real world is not kind to a hs dropout.We nees as many educated kids of all races educated or the taxpayers take care of them as adults.We definitly know welfare is noy going anywhere and education is the only way out

You might think that getting young children to learn their letters and numbers earlier will give them a boost later, but if you really looked at the research on child development, foisting academics on young children before they are ready can end up backfiring.(Certainly, we need to read TO our children--a LOT--but they don't need to know how until they are ready. We keep talking about research-backed programs, but then we don't want to look at the actual research. You have an ENTIRE country of school children in Finland (along with the children of the other Scandinavian countries) who end up being very successful in school and who outshine US students on those international exams. Guess what? "In all three countries, students start formal schooling at age seven after participating in extensive early-childhood and preschool programs focused on self-reflection and social behavior, rather than academic content." See this article: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/03/03/u-s-edu... We could take a lesson from them, but we don't it seems. You people should study Vygotsky's work. Children who don't have appropriate socio-emotional experiences as little kids, who do lots of academics early start out ahead and then end up behind.

No part of this article makes any sense to me. Over half of the state General Fund already goes to education. You want more money? That is really what we are talking about here--teaching jobs and more "education" money. There's an old saying, "Those who ask, don't get." I think the voters made a boo-boo in their voting for Torlakson--he seems totally out of it as to knowledge of the dire financial condition CA is in. Will you trade fire and police protection for new pre-school facilities? I won't. The state is broke. There is a severe budget shortfall for at least the next few years. If you want these poor, disadvantaged or ethnically challenged kids to stay in school and learn, rather than dropping out, I suggest you insist that at least one parent be fluent in English before a child be enrolled. Quoting the liberal Rand "think" tank is just plain ridiculous. These people get their funding from the same basic place as all the other "Taker" organizations, like the biased NPR. Teach your kids social responsibility and right from wrong from a young age and they will stay out of jail--period. If you can't do that, then keep your pants on while you're in high school, get it?