Welcome to Atlanta, Mr. President. Now about pre-k . . .
President Barack Obama is expected in Atlanta today, to pitch a problem to a solution.
No, I don’t have that backward.
The president’s planned visit today to a Decatur pre-k school comes on the heels of his lauding Georgia’s preschool program during his State of the Union address Tuesday night. He wants to use it as a model for a federal effort “to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.”
While I join Obama in applauding educational innovation in the states, I can think only of reasons a federal preschool program is a bad idea. Not least is the fact that the existing federal preschool program, Head Start, has been declared a failure by the very agency that administers it.
Head Start, a program for low-income children, has been around since 1965. But three years ago, after four and a half decades and $166 billion spent on the program, the Department of Health and Human Services concluded first-graders who had been in Head Start held virtually no advantage over their peers who hadn’t.
It’s an expensive failure, costing more than $7.5 billion per year to serve fewer than 1 million kids. At $7,838, Head Start’s cost per student in 2011 nearly doubled the $4,302 Georgia spent on each pre-k student that year.
But if Georgia is getting better results at roughly half the price, shouldn’t we want to see its model copied in other states?
Maybe so. Or maybe other states have different needs. Either way, they won’t match our success — and we won’t maintain it — if the feds take over pre-k.
As U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss put it to me last month: “There are too many people in Washington who are entrenched in the idea that if the federal government’s going to be involved in a program, we need to control it. And the way you control it is with money.”
Chambliss was talking about obstacles to devolving federal programs such as k-12 education and Medicaid to the states. But this fact of life in Washington is also a certain preview of how pre-k will turn out if it’s federalized.
There will be money, but also strings: regulations, stipulations, expectations. Even in Georgia the program won’t look like it does now, because the feds will craft policies for Savannah and Seattle, and everywhere in between. Successive agency heads for the program will want to put their stamps on it, if only to justify their jobs and budgets.
And, as clearly as Georgia’s elected leaders should see this coming, they’ll be hard-pressed to avoid it. The money will be too hard to pass up.
Georgia spends about one-third of its lottery proceeds on pre-k, about $312.4 million in next year’s projected revenues. The rest goes to the HOPE scholarship. How tempting will it be for a Georgia governor one day, if the value of HOPE continues to shrink relative to the cost of tuition, to take the federal pre-k dollars and devote all lottery revenues to college students?
But it will be fool’s gold, and not only because there’s no such thing as “free money” from the feds since taxpayers foot the bill sooner or later.
There’s also this: Those folks who rate government programs chiefly by how much money we spend on them will declare this a good deal — at first. Eventually, though, they’ll bemoan the falling quality of pre-k in Georgia and beseech Atlanta or Washington to cough up more money so that it can regain the effectiveness it once had … back when it was a cheaper, state-run program.
Washington this year is projected to borrow $7 billion (almost the annual cost of Head Start) every three days. Yet, Democrats and some Republicans are wringing their hands about the so-called sequester budget cuts that would trim that figure by barely one-tenth. So, you’d think this is exactly the wrong time for the feds to take on yet another role the states have proven themselves capable of handling.
That Obama is holding up Georgia’s pre-k program as a reason for Washington to get more involved in pre-k, rather than as evidence the states can handle more roles the feds can’t afford, shows just how backward he has it.
– By Kyle Wingfield
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
418 comments Add your comment
Thomas Heyward Jr
February 14th, 2013
8:55 am
Actually, federal involvement in our education system has been WILDLY successful…………for Washington.
Hence the election of Obama-types.
.
Don’t be fooled by Obama’s “official” reason for visiting Georgia.
.
Georgia is one of the top Libertarian voting states in the union. That frightens TPTB.
He’s only doing damage control.Must………get………….to…….even…….YOUNGER…..livestock…..children.
The younger the mind ………..the easier to mold into little democrats or controlled opposition republicans.
.
lol
gm
February 14th, 2013
8:58 am
Kyle and the right wing idiots prove why Georgia is the bottom of jokes around the world, and why gomers of Georgia voters are never taken serious during election time. No one around the country care about the idiots of the conservatives confederates, just look at the last election.
Bush never came to confederate land in Georgia to praise these gomers for anything, once again President Obama shows class and grace something these bubbas, and still fighting the civil war idiots will never have.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
February 14th, 2013
9:00 am
The seminal study of the minimum wage, done by economists David Card and Alan Krueger, found that job creation was actually strengthened by an increase in the minimum wage. This result has been found time and time again. So Rubio and Ryan have the history exactly backwards: raising the minimum wage results in higher wages and more purchasing power for workers, not job losses.
http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf
Ignorant Georgians
February 14th, 2013
9:01 am
We don’t need no edjumication! That thar’s socialism.
I dont know what socialism means, but thats what they tell me on Redneck radio.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
February 14th, 2013
9:02 am
You should immediately ban any of these people
Not hard to show the Cons don’t really care about anyone’s FREEDOM but their own.
Road Scholar
February 14th, 2013
9:04 am
When first conceived , didn’t this preschool idea work? The latest study I am aware of said that the gains originally made have been reduced and now only last to the 3rd grade. Why?
Instead of the snarky responses, mostly from the right, why not be constructive and make suggestions on how this program can be improved? Take Fed dollars and let the states administer it? No fed involvement besides funding and creating the programs purpose.
It’s so easy to throw rocks at any program, but how about finding ways to improve this and other programs? Or, Kyle, are the cons unable to grasp and comment on positive change, esp on education?
Waiting until high school/college is too late as evidenced by our states’ stellar school rankings! Something has to be done now. Dumbing down the grade point for technical schools ain’t it. Hell, most of the kids coming out of high school in this state couldn’t graduate from schools in other states!!! Think about it! My wife is a professor and each year the majority of her students are not prepared for college!!!
U-asked
February 14th, 2013
9:06 am
Third Grade Follow-up to the Head Start Impact Study
Key Findings
Looking across the full study period, from the beginning of Head Start through 3rd grade, the evidence is clear that access to Head Start improved children’s preschool outcomes across developmental domains, but <b<had few impacts on children in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Providing access to Head Start was found to have a positive impact on the types and quality of preschool programs that children attended, with the study finding statistically significant differences between the Head Start group and the control group on every measure of children’s preschool experiences in the first year of the study. In contrast, there was little evidence of systematic differences in children’s elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group.
In terms of children’s well-being, there is also clear evidence that access to Head Start had an impact on children’s language and literacy development while children were in Head Start. These effects, albeit modest in magnitude, were found for both age cohorts during their first year of admission to the Head Start program. However, these early effects rapidly dissipated in elementary school, with only a single impact remaining at the end of 3rd grade for children in each age cohort.
With regard to children’s social-emotional development, the results differed by age cohort and by the person describing the child’s behavior. For children in the 4-year-old cohort, there were no observed impacts through the end of kindergarten but favorable impacts reported by parents and unfavorable impacts reported by teachers emerged at the end of 1st and 3rd grades. One unfavorable impact on the children’s self-report emerged at the end of 3rd grade. In contrast to the 4-year-old cohort, for the 3-year-old cohort there were favorable impacts on parent-reported social emotional outcomes in the early years of the study that continued into early elementary school. However, there were no impacts on teacher-reported measures of social-emotional development for the 3-year-old cohort at any data collection point or on the children’s self-reports in 3rd grade.
Parents like the free babysitting.
MarkV
February 14th, 2013
9:07 am
It is quite amazing how many things the United States, the richest country in the world, cannot afford, that most other developed countries in the world can. It is equally amazing that the same people who believe the US to be best in everything also believe that the US is incapable to administer a universal pre-school program.
Jefferson
February 14th, 2013
9:15 am
Are you half empty folks always grumpy ?
gm
February 14th, 2013
9:17 am
Anytime you can reward Mark Richt for subpar standards but can not put money in our Pre K shows how backwards and what prioties these conservative idiots and clowns of Georgia leader ship.
MANGLER
February 14th, 2013
9:20 am
Maybe the Federal Govt should just allow parents, neighbors, friends, and anyone who wishes to divert their income tax dollars directly into “scholarships” paid to new privately run for profit out of State commercially backed Pre-K charter schools. GOP would go for that one, right? After all, it’s for the underprivileged minority kids, just like the high school scam, er, scholarship program.
MarkV
February 14th, 2013
9:21 am
Kyle’s (and others’) thinking is quite straightforward: If one federal program in a certain area is not successful, no other program in that area can be successful. What else to call it other than straightforward? Simplistic? Defeatist? Simple-minded?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
February 14th, 2013
9:22 am
Wow. Have the bars opened early today in honor of President Incompetent’s visit?
‘Cause the left is unusually vicious in the responses today.
Ivan
February 14th, 2013
9:27 am
“That Obama is holding up Georgia’s pre-k program as a reason for Washington to get more involved in pre-k, rather than as evidence the states can handle more roles the feds can’t afford, shows just how backward he has it.”
/standing applause
Aquagirl
February 14th, 2013
9:29 am
The latest study I am aware of said that the gains originally made have been reduced and now only last to the 3rd grade. Why?
The actual report HHS did on Head Start is strange, many of the cognitive assessments done in the pre-K years were marked “NA” at the third grade level because they weren’t collected. It appears they only used a couple of measurements in 3rd grade. The types of tests varied by age, which makes some sense but for a comparative assessment of the same kid it seems problematic.
The HHS study has another issue in my book–it was a comparison of Head Start vs. other kinds of programs, not Head Start vs. nothing.
Some of the education-soaked people over in Maureen’s blog might understand the study but I’m not gung-ho enough for a dip in that alphabet soup.
A long-range study done on a group of pre-K’ers (man that’s an awkward handle) in the 1960’s followed them to adulthood. The pre-K group had a lower arrest rate and more HS diplomas and jobs. I personally like those metrics better than some BBQEXS score on the IOKIYAR Comprehensive Assessment of FUBAR.
EMMA
February 14th, 2013
9:32 am
To my Educators: If headstart is such a failure…why don’t we do away with the program instead of spending millions????
Ivan
February 14th, 2013
9:39 am
OBAMA: “I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”
Translation: You need to work with us. If you don’t, I’ll do it my way. How’s that for compromise the left is always whining about?
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 14th, 2013
9:40 am
Not hard to show the Cons don’t really care about anyone’s FREEDOM but their own.
No kidding, the lib passes by fifteen calls for censorship without a peep and seizes on the one written in total sarcasm of the others, so which is it, are they ignorant or just ate up?
sailfish
February 14th, 2013
9:41 am
“Have the bars opened early today in honor of President Incompetent’s visit?”
As if your own arrogance equals competency, keep trying.
Mary Elizabeth
February 14th, 2013
9:41 am
Road Scholar, 9:04 am
“The latest study I am aware of said that the gains originally made have been reduced and now only last to the 3rd grade. Why?”
===========================================================
I attempted to answer your question, above, recently on another thread on this blog. I’ll repeat my response, here, for any readers who did not read that post, and I’ll add a few additional thoughts at the end of this post, to further answer your question.
“. . .students should be taught on their precise, individual instructional levels – regardless of their grade levels – as they continue to advance through the curriculi of a 12 grade-level, lock-step, educational design. In other words, we must become more sophisticated in educational delivery for all students, according to students’ individual needs, regardless of their grade levels, in the grades post pre-k. However, we should not fail to fund pre-k programs because we are not, now, fully successful in addressing targeted instruction for all students in the later grades. The answer is to address instruction in the later grades more effectively on a continuous progress, mastery learning format, rather than holding to a rigid grade level curriculum criteria for all students, as well as to continue building the pre-k programs for all students.
For more of my thoughts on how to accomplish this, please read the link below from my personal blog:”
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/educational-essay-9-my-thoughts-for-improving-public-education/
In addition, poverty needs a more focused targeting for impoverished families within our nation, as assertedly as it had been targeted during the 1960s. I have not seen that kind of focus on poverty since the 1960s. These two approaches (targeted instruction to individual functioning and targeting poverty) will help to improve the academic standing of significantly more students post pre-k programs. Moreover, offering technical education earlier in high school, and coordinating these technical courses to colleges for technical degrees earned earlier than occurs presently, will help decrease the high school drop-out rate.
the red herring
February 14th, 2013
9:46 am
The federal government the last time i looked was 16.5 trillion in debt and climbing. Georgia has a Pre-K program already that is functioning and funded. We do not need more Federal Govt. control over our state. The Federal Govt. should first fix those programs which are going broke—medicare and social security. Let’s see the Federal Govt. learn to run programs such as those in a financially responsible manner before we give them anymore tax dollars and before we let them take over anymore government programs. Rest assured there is Union money behind Obama’s push for more and more control.
resno2
February 14th, 2013
9:52 am
Welcome to Georgia Mr. President. Now please get your pictures taken and leave.
Thulsa Doom
February 14th, 2013
9:52 am
Typical liberals. Clearly the Head start program DOES NOT WORK. And yet the libs still want to keep wasting money on something that DOES NOT WORK. And they try to justify continuing to waste money on a program that DOES NOT WORK with emotional appeals and comments about a civilized nation educating its children and other rhetoric. And therein lies the problem. We will continue to fund a program that DOES NOT WORK because if you try to end this boondoggle that DOES NOT WORK then the libs will scream that the Rs are anti-child and that the meanie ole Rs hate children and all that nonsense. And so hence we will continue to waste money on a program that DOES NOT WORK- all because libs think with their emotions as opposed to rational, logical thinking.
curious
February 14th, 2013
10:01 am
The reason most other industrialized countries can afford the social programs we say are too expensive is they don’t spend as much on defense as we do.
Maybe our priorities needs to be reexamined.
Thomas Heyward Jr
February 14th, 2013
10:05 am
In this ObamaNation………..Education is overrated anyhoo.
.
If you get free cheese and money from the government, then all you need to know is the letter D.
Vote accordingly.
.
Likewise, if you’re still crazy enough to work for a living and then to have the government seize 70% of your paycheck through taxes and inflation…….to pay for above AND to kill brown people 10 thousand miles away, then all you need to know is the letter R.
Vote accordingly.
.
KISS.
Keep it Simple Sheeple.
ex-teacher
February 14th, 2013
10:09 am
“first-graders who had been in Head Start held virtually no advantage over their peers who hadn’t.”
you take a bunch of “poor dumb kids” and 2 years later they are equal to the middle class kids.
seems like a success.
Mary Elizabeth
February 14th, 2013
10:12 am
Yesterday, I read an article in “Time” magazine, December 17th (or 12th), 2012, page 27, by Joe Klein entitled, “Obamacare vs. Medicare” (actually the content described the benefits of combining the two medical programs, making both Democrats and Republicans happy). I copied the following words from Klein’s article because I would like to see educational practices model medical practices in the need for a similar record keeping, diagnostic approach to solving medical or educational problems. Having each student’s precise instructional functioning level, especially in reading and math, placed within computer programs – via standardized test scores – will allow teachers to “pull up” individual score variances among their students, in seconds, and, thereafter, instructionally address effectively the wide range of these instructional variances that will invariably occur within each grade level. This state-of-the-art record keeping will lead to more successful instruction and more successful students. From the “Time” article:
“The nation’s hospitals are discovering that the information culled from electronic record keeping can lead to best practice procedures that save money and provide more effective care.”
Thulsa Doom
February 14th, 2013
10:13 am
“I have not seen that kind of focus on poverty since the 1960s. These two approaches (targeted instruction to individual functioning and targeting poverty)”
Mary Elizabeth,
Specifically what do you mean by “targeting instruction to individual functioning)? No offense but that just sounds like some lofty, vague notion. If you’re talking about lower class sizes which offer more individual instruction we already have that.
My sister teaches 5th graders in Alabama and her max class size is 17 because the law states that in a majority minority class that the teacher to pupil ratio cannot exceed 17 to 1. When I went to the same elementary school 30 years earlier our class size was 30. Yet we still all learned.
These kids my sister teaches are disadavanted not by poverty, not by lack of individual instruction, but by a subculture where education is a low priority, where most come from a single parent household, there is no discipline in the family, no reading materials, the parent doesn’t give a crap about helping the child with his homework, and on and on.
The uncomfortable truth is that the biggest obstacle to learning in many cases is the culture and values of the family and community the child comes from. And the sad truth is that there is not a whole lot we can do about it.
As for your comments about poverty it seems that you erroneously automatically equate poverty to failed academic performance. If that were true then Ben Carson would never have achieved his status as one of the world’s foremost surgeons since he came from a poor background with an illiterate mother. The difference between he and other kids was that his mother cared deeply about his education though she herself could not read.
And in addition to Carson history is replete with examples of poverty stricken peoples who rose through society and through education and the right set of cultural values and became quite prosperous. Look at the Jews in this country who started out in the Jewish ghettos. Look at the Asian kids today filling up California colleges. Many of them went to the same tough inncer city high schools that blacks and Hispanics attend. Where they separate is in their cultural values and their high emphasis on education not to mention family.
You seem to have the idea that there is a cause and effect relationship between poverty and poor academic achievement. The evidence doesn’t agree with you.
Dusty
February 14th, 2013
10:22 am
Dear MarkV
Happy Valentine’s day to you,too, my friend. That’s a nice start to a fine day.( I have to leave in a few minutes.)
IN the meantime, Kyle has given us some very straight forward facts. Please consider the fact that Headstart has been pronounced a failure by the agency itself. Three year olds need babysitters if they don’t have parents to raise them. I don’t think the government is constructed or designed to be babysitters. There are bigger things to be managed than teaching little ones how to tie their shoes, etc.
Maybe we should teach kiddies how to “budget” since they aren’t going to have much money on which to live when they are adults and the government is still deep in debt. (You thought I wouldn’t mention THAT. Fooled ya!)
Bye…
sailfish
February 14th, 2013
10:28 am
Tiberius
Sorry for that snarky comment, not necessary. Besides, you know how much I hate sharks anyways.
doom
What on earth has happened to you? Libs this, libs that, really? Like some of the goobers on your side of the aisle don’t wear depends? Where’s that sense of humor? Wheres’s that clever intellect that deals with the facts mam, just the facts? No, you’ve gone done ideology avenue getting lost. Look up please it’s really a dead end!
Aquagirl
February 14th, 2013
10:31 am
And in addition to Carson history is replete with examples of poverty stricken peoples who rose through society and through education
If you were educated in one of the 20+ nations ahead of us in math and science I probably wouldn’t have to point out the obvious: the plural of anecdotes is not data.
wallbanger
February 14th, 2013
10:32 am
This guy loves to come and talk to his welfare recipient and liberal crowd about how he can spend more taxpayer money. It is only this generation who has had pre-K and frankly, they haven’t turned out so well. All this program is is a baby sitting program for families that don’t want to be bothered to raise their own children in their infancy and toddler-hood. It seems rather sick to me and as a taxpayer I hate having to fund yet another bought and paid for Democrat vote.
Road Scholar
February 14th, 2013
10:33 am
Thank you Mary Elizabeth! I agree with both your posts. Schools aren’t diploma mills.
yuzeyurbrane
February 14th, 2013
10:38 am
Kyle, I am sure you cherry picked your Head Start opinion. I have read of many evaluations which rate it is an overwhelming success and have known a number of teachers in the program who likewise gave it high marks.
sailfish
February 14th, 2013
10:46 am
“You seem to have the idea that there is a cause and effect relationship between poverty and poor academic achievement. The evidence doesn’t agree with you.”
Absolutely, positively incorrect!! The evidence sir most certainly does not agree with you and I’m talking empirical evidence not to mention good old common sense!
Rafe Hollister preparing for an Obamanist America
February 14th, 2013
10:47 am
What the federal program lovers like Aynie Sue, Cherokee, and Mary Elizabeth always forget is that it is the United “STATES” of America, not as they wish, the United People of America. This lunacy of only the feds can educate, feed, house, train, support, and brain wash our children effectively is the biggest problem, outside the debt, facing America. Government efforts work best when controlled at the local and state level.
We desperately need a Constitutional convention to restore the rights of the states, as was intended by the framers. The courts have so eroded the 10th amendment, it is as if, it is no longer contained in the Constitution. We need to repeal the 17th Amendment, and allow the State Government to appoint Senators. This amendment did more to disenfranchise states than any other thing we have ever done. Now, the state governments have no representation in the US Govt and the Feds have taken over most everything, to America’s detriment.
Thulsa Doom
February 14th, 2013
10:48 am
“If you were educated in one of the 20+ nations ahead of us in math and science I probably wouldn’t have to point out the obvious: the plural of anecdotes is not data”
Aquagirl,
And if you broke down our educational data by groups you would see that some groups such as Asians, are probably right near the top when compared to those 20 other nations who score higher. In my view it comes down to cultural and values more so than anything else and I think that data would pretty much support my view.
Also if we are spending more on education per person that practically anyone on Earth then why are you folks in favor of just throwing more money at a system that clearly is not working according to the international testing scores that you just presented? Seems that’s the knee jerk liberal solution to everything- more programs and more wasted money. And at a time when we are broke and spending more than ever on education with lesser results.
Steve
February 14th, 2013
10:53 am
I also agree and am wondering why Kyle tolerates the childishness, the insults, the racism etc that fills up this blog? Certainly paints a poor picture of the Confederates that frequent here. It’s truly embarrassing.
And I agree, why doesn’t Kyle point directly to the study instead of worn out extremist anti government ideology?
Georgia
February 14th, 2013
10:55 am
The GOP would have children not in pre-k, but in pre-kkk. or pre-k rations, that is, learning how to invade other countries and kill the pre-k’s of any country not involved in 911, as long as they look like they coulda, woulda or shoulda been involved. The GOP is very special-k. Notice all the fruit loops?
Thulsa Doom
February 14th, 2013
10:55 am
“Absolutely, positively incorrect!! The evidence sir most certainly does not agree with you and I’m talking empirical evidence not to mention good old common sense!”
Nope. If that were true then how do you explain the fact that many Asians in California colleges in the past and present came from lower income households and went to tough inner city schools? And as I explained earlier how do you explain the successes of minority groups such as the Jews who were dirt poor when they came into this country and lived in the Jewish ghettos. There is no direct cause and effect link between poverty and education.
Do some historical reading on cultures and migrations and you will see that the world has numerous examples of poor peoples who started out with little to nothing and became very prosperous and highly educated in their adopted nations.
Steve
February 14th, 2013
10:55 am
So, where DOES Georgia stand compared to other states when it comes to education? Pretty low, right? So why does this Federal plan to educate our very young stir up so much opposition? Ignorance? An I hate anything Obama proposes mentality? Stupidity? Stubborness?
Thulsa Doom
February 14th, 2013
10:58 am
“No, you’ve gone done ideology avenue getting lost.”- Sailfish
Irony…
Steve
February 14th, 2013
11:00 am
Georgia’s Pre kindergarten program: (from the AJC)
NIEER’s report also predicts Georgia’s quality rating will fall next year because of decisions by the governor and Legislature to cut 20 days from the pre-k school year and to increase class sizes by two students for the current school year.
Teachers, who were facing the prospect of 10 percent pay cuts, quit the program in record numbers between the legislative session’s end in spring 2011 and the start of this school year. Gov. Nathan Deal pushed through a proposal in the recent General Assembly session to restore 10 of the 20 days for the next school year.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
February 14th, 2013
11:02 am
“So why does this Federal plan to educate our very young stir up so much opposition?”
1. An acknowledgement that the program currently in place is a failure according to the agency who runs it.
2. States have proven they can run programs better than the Feds and actually pay for them.
3. The Federal government is awash in debt and can’t pay it’s bills today.
4. The promises of Obamacare are, each and every one of them, being proven to be errors or lies. Why should an education initiative be any different?
5. The failure that is President Incompetent.
Need any more valid reasons, Steve?
Thulsa Doom
February 14th, 2013
11:07 am
sailfish,
Also as for the lack of humor this is the adult table so we do have to behave ourselves. I can’t call Fred a peanut headed ensemble of nature’s carelessness over here and get away with it like I did next door.
Mary Elizabeth
February 14th, 2013
11:08 am
Thulsa, 10:13 am
“Mary Elizabeth,
Specifically what do you mean by “targeting instruction to individual functioning)? No offense but that just sounds like some lofty, vague notion. . .”
========================================================
“Targeting instruction to individual functioning” is not “some lofty, vague notion.” In fact, that educational design is the opposite of a lofty, vague notion.” Its successful implementation requires great cohesion and mastery of detail. I practiced that instructional principle, firsthand, for almost a decade when I was an Instructional Lead Teacher, leading directly under the principal’s guidance, an ongoing instructional program of that design, in a model school of grades 1 – 7. Later in my career, I used what I had learned in that model school to help teachers in a high school of 1,800 students to more closely target their instruction for the wide range of functioning levels of students in their English, mathematics, social studies, and science classes. I served as a schoolwide Reading Department Chair for that school.
I cannot possibly answer your question of me on this blog, with all of the knowledge and implemented details that I learned and practiced both in graduate school and in my educational career, which spanned 35 years.
I will, however, urge you and others, who may be interested in learning more about instruction in greater depth and detail, to read the nine educational essays that I have written on my personal blog. I will link you to the first essay, below. My ninth educational essay was linked in my 9:41 post, above.
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/about-education-essay-1-mastery-learning/
———————————————————————————
You write: “You seem to have the idea that there is a cause and effect relationship between poverty and poor academic achievement. The evidence doesn’t agree with you.”
I cannot agree with you on that. Practically every educational article that I have read has confirmed a strong causal relationship between poverty and the lack of academic success.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
February 14th, 2013
11:09 am
Thulsa, please don;t remind us about Fred. Anything he does is best left unsaid.
Aquagirl
February 14th, 2013
11:09 am
In my view it comes down to cultural and values more so than anything else and I think that data would pretty much support my view.
Good, then I don’t have to convince you that exposing young children to a different culture where learning is emphasized is an awesome idea. And here I was thinking we disagreed. Sorry, my mistake.
Sailfish is right, what’s happened to you? The old Doom would have never stuck his head in a verbal noose like that.
sailfish
February 14th, 2013
11:13 am
doom
Do you actually read what you say? Asian families? Yes, they have a family and that is the point. Ever visit a place where a child comes home to where the mother is cracked out or they live with an elderly sibling or an old tired out grandmother???
If you really think that a program like head start doesn’t positively help that child, then nothing will break through your concrete ideology.
So you think I represent irony? Maybe thats partially true but I am not monolithic and independent enough to swim against the current.
Rafe Hollister preparing for an Obamanist America
February 14th, 2013
11:13 am
Steve
Certainly paints a poor picture of the Confederates that frequent here.
As Dr Carson pointed out the other day, the efforts to stifle free speech, with political correctness is killing the country. We need to openly discuss problems without you branding everything you don’t agree with as hate speech, racism, and bigotry. Most of the accusations and insults come from the left on this blog, other than a few parasite, takers, and leeches comments, which you may take as racial, but those targeted people make up all the races. So, you just go on with your insults, kkk and confederate talk, and call for civility all you want, but coming from you it is just more blather.