We're fifteen minutes into Fordham's big debate on universal preschool, designed to discuss Checker Finn's latest book,??Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut.??Here's the line-up:
Presenter:Chester E. Finn, Jr., President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Respondents:
Steve Barnett, Co-Director, National Institute for Early Education Research
Neal McCluskey, Associate Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute
Sara Mead, Director, Early Education Initiative, New America Foundation
Moderator:
Richard Colvin, Director, Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Teachers College, Columbia University
Checker is using his opening comments to restate the same arguments he made in this Washington Post Op-Ed. In short: universal preschool provides a subsidy to people who don't need it, and doesn't provide enough intensive preschool to the poor kids that need it most.
Here are a couple of Checker Finn originals, though:
Pre-school is pre-Coleman. It's still focused on resources and inputs instead of outcomes and results.
And:
Head Start has spent four decades denying it's a pre-school program.
The gauntlet has been laid down.
