Checker argues in this morning's Washington Post that universal preschool as currently conceived should be reexamined.
For all its surface appeal, universal preschool is an unwise use of tax dollars. In a time of ballooning deficits, expansion of preschool programs would use large sums on behalf of families that don't need this subsidy while not providing nearly enough help to the smaller number of children who need it most. It fails to overhaul expensive but woefully ineffectual efforts such as Head Start. And it dumps 5-year-olds, ready or not, into public-school classrooms that today are unable even to make and sustain their own achievement gains, much less to capitalize on any advances these youngsters bring from preschool. (Part of the energy behind universal pre-K is school systems--and teachers unions--maneuvering to expand their own mandates, revenue and membership rolls.)
In fact, the way in which we think about preschool is grounded in four incorrect assumptions, he explains. Instead of jumping on the preschool bandwagon, we should be asking ourselves four things: if everybody really needs it, if preschool fulfills educational goals, if the existing programs are really doing a good job, and, especially, if Head Start, the long lauded and incredibly expensive federal program, really is the right model to espouse and expand. Furthermore, there are things we could be doing that would make preschool an effective tool. Find out the rest of Checker's argument here.
Checker was recently the author of a book on this very subject. If this article piques your interest, you can purchase that tome here.
