The New York Times article, ?The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers? by David Leonhardt, was the most-emailed article in the Times yesterday, and Education Week's Elanna S. Yalow wants ?Kindergarten-Ready? to replace ?Career and College-Ready? in Arne Duncan's lexicon. However, despite the splash that early childhood education is making in the headlines these past few days, the fade-out effects of even high quality programs like Head Start have traditionally served to caution us against the belief that early childhood education is the silver bullet needed to close the achievement gap.
Here's what's interesting about the study informing Leonhardt's article: it tells us that fade-out occurs only when considering test scores, which overlook other ?life-metrics? that quality early education programs increase, such as college attendance, income, or even softer qualities including patience and manners.
Check out our report, ?Half Empty or Half Full?: Florida's Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Standards,? on proceeding effectively with Pre-Kindergarten programs in the past:
[A]chieving greater growth for the low-income children who enter the [voluntary Pre-Kindergarten] program already behind their peers will most likely require more intensive services, perhaps even a different mix of services, and possibly a longer school day. Thus, programs serving these students would need more resources than the programs that serve other students. If the hope is to get all children to the Kindergarten starting line adequately prepared for the challenges of K-12, ?universal? must not be equated with ?uniform.? Low-income children need a richer mix of more intensive services than those provided to more affluent children.
We may not be paying our Kindergarten teachers 320K any time soon, but let's take lessons from these past and present findings on the value of quality early elementary education.
?Kyle Kennedy, Fordham intern