Studies show that girls born to teenage
mothers are more likely to become mothers before the age of 18 than girls born
to more mature women (Flanagan). Children whose parents smoke are twice as
likely to begin smoking between the ages of 13-21 than children whose parents
do not smoke (Schwarz). In a
more positive light, children of college graduates are more likely to do well
in school and go on to graduate college themselves than children with parents
who did not graduate college (Hick). These statistics are just a few examples
of how familial cycles are difficult to break. The same is true when it comes
to poverty. A child born into poverty is more likely to remain in poverty into
adulthood and to continue the cycle. Since the Great Depression many
presidential administrations have designed and launched programs to end poverty
in the United States. By and large these programs failed to realize that the
most effective strategy to eliminate poverty is to ensure children of poor
parents break the cycle and never enter poverty as adults. One way children can
break the cycle is by succeeding in school. Educational reforms today focus
heavily on improving K-12 schools. A well needed and admirable pursuit yes, but
the level of achievement a child reaches later in life is largely determined by
the quality of preschool education he or she receives early on in life. The
problem remains that preschool education in California for low income families
is sparse and not as effective as it could be.
Local and state governments, as well as the federal government, must
create and direct funds towards preschool programs specifically designed to
counter the adverse effects of poverty on a child’s academic and social
success. These programs must address the psychological, familial, physical,
social and cognitive needs of children in poverty in order to ensure they build
a strong educational foundation. Investing in this foundation will pay off over
time as the children will be less likely to continue in poverty, less likely to
turn to crime and more likely to be productive citizens.
For decades education reform tactics
have failed to produce a long lasting effect on children in America. The reason
for such minimal success stems from a variety of factors. One important factor
is the decrease in money spent per child nationwide and the increase in
educational budget cuts across the country. This budget cuts hit the children
in low income areas the hardest because they are already victims of underfunded
schools. When their schools do not receive enough funding they close and send
students to equally underfunded schools. When there is not enough money for the
staff school boards fire quality teachers based on the “first hired, first
fired” doctrine. They cut art and physical education programs and shorten or
reduce school days altogether. Over the past decade, “funding for state pre-K
programs has plummeted by more than $700 per child nationwide” (McNeely). Underfunded
preschool programs have a difficult time being efficient and end up nothing
more than day-care centers. Another important factor for the limited success
educational reform has seen is due to the over testing of students under No
Child Left Behind Act. Teachers spend much of their time teaching for these
tests and neglect to teach the students based on their individual needs. As a
result children whose first language is not English and those who have special
needs do not perform well on these tests and they are not learning beneficial
subject material. It is a lose-lose situation. Most importantly educational
reformed has focused primarily on K-12 education. In recent years a big push
for breaking up large high schools in favor of smaller and privatized high
schools has caused the destruction of many public high schools and has been
ineffective as well. Public school advocates, such as Diane Ravitch, call for
the madness to stop and point to many examples of privately funded high schools
that have failed such as the Gates Foundation and the many small schools that
Mayor Bloomberg’s administration created in New York City. The problem with
aiming reform at high schools is by the time students reach that level they are
too far behind to catch up in just a few years. Education reform would be most
effective when directed towards children ages 3-5. It is during these critical
years that children start on a path towards success or failure.
It is common knowledge that poverty
adversely affects a child’s academic success. Before one can hope to combat
these effects it is very important to understand exactly what it is about
poverty that threatens a child’s success. According to Eric Jensen author of Teaching with Poverty in Mind there are
four important risk factors children in low income families face: emotional and
social challenges, acute and chronic stressors, cognitive lags, and health and
safety issues (Jensen). Emotional and social challenges refer to the
maladaptive behaviors children take on as result of a caregiver’s decreased
sensitivity towards the child during infancy. This is in no way a claim that
parents of low socio-economic status are bad caregivers. Rather, over- burdened
and young parents have less time and energy to engage with their infants. Also
depression and inadequate health care correlate with less sensitivity towards
an infant (Jensen). The bond an infant forms, during a process called “attunement”,
with his or her caregiver is very critical in determining the type of
relationship the child will have later on with classmates and teachers. A lack
of proper attachment during infancy manifests itself as a lack of curiosity,
arousal, emotional regulation, independence, and social competence in children.
Children who have not been able to bond with a caregiver also tend to, “get so
easily frustrated that they give up on a task when success was just moments
away” (Jensen). Stress, defined as, “the physiological response to the
perception of loss of control resulting from an adverse situation or person” is
actually healthy when in manageable doses (Jensen). It is what motivates humans
to be productive. Acute stress however
is not healthy as it is a result of abuse or violence. When this stress is
prolonged or maintained over time it become chronic. Unfortunately, children in
low income families are more likely to fall victim of these type of stress: criticism, neglect, social exclusion, lack
of enrichment, malnutrition, drug use, and exposure to toxins, abuse, or trauma
(Jensen). Acute and chronic stress has many negative effects on children in
school. For example it impairs attention and concentration, reduces cognition,
creativity and memory, reduces motivation, determination and effort and it
reduces neurogenesis (Jensen). Highly stressed children also become more
impulsive, an exaggerated stress response that functions as a survival
mechanism (Jensen). What is worse is as a child takes on more and more stress
each one compounds the previous stressor leaving the child feeling helpless and
unable to focus in class.
Children from low income families are
more at risk to experience health and safety issues starting with the very
homes they live in. The older and poorly kept housing units that many low
income families live in expose children to toxins such as lead from paint,
radon and carbon monoxide. They are even at risk while they are fetuses as
their mother’s work environment exposes them to pesticides. The mothers may
also smoke, drink, or do drugs while expecting. Poorer neighborhoods tend to be
more dangerous and put children at greater pedestrian risks and gang violence.
If the child has no health insurance they do not receive the proper health care
for illness sure as asthma, TB, ear and respiratory infections, or
malnutrition. When these illnesses go unattended the best case scenario is the
children are just distracted in school because many are more likely to die from
injuries or infections than their middle class counterparts (Jensen). A risk
factor that many studies have looked at is the cognitive lags children from low
income families face. The five systems of the brain necessary to function in
school are the executive, language, memory, spatial cognition, and visual
cognition systems (Jensen). Poverty threatens a child’s language system because
they are less likely to experience a rich variety of words and sentences.
Similar to the effects they experience with the failed attunement process there
is a critical age in which children acquire language. However, because their
caregivers often use simplistic language, do not engage in meaningful back and
forth, ask fewer questions and explain fewer concepts these children acquire a
less advanced vocabulary (Jensen). This decreased vocabulary makes it difficult
for children to learn to read efficiently a severe detriment because reading “is one of the most important factors
affecting the development of a child's brain” (Jensen). It is possible
for all these risk factors to diminish over time if there is an active force
working against them. Local and state governments have an obligation to create
such forces in the public schools.
Now more than ever there needs to be a
focus on improving early childhood education because 3-4 years old is a
critical age in which children learn how
to learn and also because caregivers need to begin early learning effective
ways of reversing the effects of poverty.
The first step in reversing the effects of poverty is to make quality
preschool available to all 3-4 year olds that need it. In his most recent State
of the Union Address, Obama revealed his plan to fund universal preschool. This
is a step in the right direction and this paper will analyze his plan more in
depth later on. As of 2011 only 16% of 3 year olds and 31% of 4 year olds were
enrolled in pre-k or Head Start (The
State of Preschool). California has been a leader in early childhood
education because it was one of the first state to provide the state-funded
preschool programs, State Preschool Program (SPP) and Prekindergarten and
Family Literacy Program (PKFLP). PKFLP offers preschool to families whose
income is at or below 75% of the state median income. The two have since merged
into one program called the California State Preschool Program (The State of Preschool). It is important
to note that enrollment in pre-k programs has increased over time yet quality
has not. Funding has decreased and teachers are not always qualified. Of the 11
benchmark requirements CSPP only met 3, failing on important benchmarks such as
teacher and teacher’s assistant level of education, class size and screening,
referral, and support services (The State
of Preschool). This is important because the services a preschool offers to
the families makes all the difference in making it a quality program. Preschools
need to become central connection points where families can receive information
on housing, health, nutrition and welfare (Bierda and Moses). Many families in
poverty face challenges when trying to receive assistance such as WIC,
Madicaid, children’s health insurance, housing assistance and unemployment
insurance. Attaining these services are difficult because of locations not conducive
to families reliant on public transportation, misinformation about eligibility,
complicated application processes and because of the stigma associated with
applying for such programs (Bierda and Moses). Situating and running these
programs out of the preschools diminishes all these issues. Caregivers will be
able to easily access documents and live help if the information is in the same
where they drop off their children every day. They can build a relationship
with their child’s teachers who can then direct them to the exact program they
need. Fears of the stigma will also be relieved because no one questions them
when they enter a school as they would if they were to enter a welfare
office. Locating such programs in the
school will also greatly benefit the children during the school day. Health
services can provide nutritious breakfasts, lunches and snacks to the students,
prepared fresh on site and also provide medical care to students who teachers
notice have asthma, ear or respiratory infections, or other easily treatable
illness. Challenges that stand in the way of making these programs a reality
are primary due to the lack of funding. There simply are not enough staff
members or buildings available to create such programs. If Obama’s Zero to Five
plan succeeds it may allow for many of these programs to form.
Aside from the services a preschool
program provides another factor that establishes it as a quality program is the
level of teacher qualification and the classroom design. Every teacher that
interacts with the child on a regular basis should not only have the proper
certifications to teach, but should also attend training sessions specifically
designed to work with children in poverty, and yearly training sessions.
Teachers should regularly undergo observation and revaluations by their peers
and students’ parents. They should design their classroom so that children can
learn through play. They cannot allow what happened to the kindergarten
classroom happen to the preschool classroom as well. Over testing children in
kindergarten has left their classrooms closely resembling first and second
grade classrooms. Young children need open space, hands on activities,
costumes, art supplies, and books to fully grow cognitively and socially.
Head Start is a program that resembles
the one described above. Created in 1965 by the Johnson’s administration Head
Start has provided preschool education to low income families across the
country. Recently however many have called into question the effectiveness of
this program. Arguments against Head Start claim that cognitive effects in
children nearly vanished by the time the child was in the first grade (Klein).
While there are studies to support this claim there are also studies that show
that the social effects of Head Start lasted well into adulthood (Rich).
Children that have participated in Head Start in the long run are less likely to,
“be diagnosed as learning disabled, less likely to commit crime, more likely to
graduate high school and attend college, and less likely to suffer from poor
health as an adult” (Deming). These positive effects seem to be a result of
increased parental involvement during and after the child’s enrollment in Head
Start. Although Head Start is not without its problems, quality preschools
should strive to include parents in the learning process as Head Start does
because that makes all the difference. These programs play a large part in
fostering parent-child interaction. By learning how to help their children
learn early on parents continue their involvement not only in their child’s
academic lives but in other areas as well. The result is a lower teenage pregnancy
rate, reduced drug and alcohol use, and reduced juvenile delinquency. Preschool
programs should also strive to teach the parents of their students the
importance of providing stable and consistent care for their infants so the attunement
process can take place (Barnett and Haskins).
The Obama administration seems to be in
favor of supporting early childhood education. Obama recently outlined his Zero
to Five plan to invest $10 billion a year to support young children and their
parents. His plan includes steps to provide states funding to support zero to
five efforts. State will be responsible to match federal funds and have the
freedom to decide how to spend funds. He will quadruple the number of children
eligible for Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve the
quality of both (Weinstein). Most importantly, Obama’s plan will provide
funding to and encourage all states to adopt voluntary universal preschool for
all 4 year olds (Weinstein). The possibilities with this plan are endless. First,
improving the quality of Head Start by learning from the results of past
studies, emphasizing skills that
are most predictive of later achievement in the classroom, and increasing
parental involvement with new technology will make the program effective in
maintaining both positive cognitive and social long term effects. By increasing
funds to pre-k programs they will be able to better facilitate the much needed
collaboration between the federal, state, and local governments. Increased funding to pre-k programs will also
attract more qualified teachers to the schools. Steven Barnett, the Co-director
of the National Institute of Early Education Research states that:
Teacher pay and
retention in childcare facilities is a problem in most states. “Childcare
centers have a labor shortage, and they can’t hire people because Starbucks
pays more. We know how to educate kids to increase their school readiness, but
we don’t do it. And the primary reason is that we aren’t willing to pay
teachers enough to do the job we know they need to do” (Weinstein).
Critics
of Obama’s plan fear that funding state preschools will turn the classroom into
a center for testing. Children will lose the freedom of free play. This would
be a step in the wrong direction because:
A disproportionate emphasis
on academic skills in the preschool years violates everything we know
scientifically about healthy child development: that three- and four-year-olds
learn best when learning is embedded in social relationships, real life
experience, and unhurried exploration. In short, young children, like all other
mammals, learn through play (Christakis).
This
is a valid argument because where state mandates are concerned over testing
children usually follows closely behind. One major hope with Obama’s plan is
that the states and local governments carefully craft programs based on studies
that show positive effects. It is also a hope that states figure out a way to
use their increased funding to form a smoother bridge between pre-k and the K-12
public school system. Academic skills can fade over time no matter the quality
of pre-k instruction if the K-12 instruction is subpar.
Although the cognitive benefits of early
childhood education may fade over time Head Start is not the only entity to
have documented the longer lasting and more profound effects of quality pre-k
instruction. In the 1970s a project called Abecedarian took place. This
longitudinal study took 111 infants from low-income African- American families
and provided them with activities designed to support their language,
cognitive, social and emotional development until they reached kindergarten
(uncnews.unc.edu). 30 years later 101 of the subjects partook in a follow-up
survey. The survey revealed that those who partook in the educational
activities were four times more likely to have a college degree than the
control group. 75% had worked fulltime in 16 out of the last 24 months compared
to 53% in the control group. They were less likely to be on welfare and showed
a tendency to delay parenthood two years later than the control group
(uncnews.unc.edu). Another study produced very similar results. In the 1960s
the Perry School Program provided, “a daily 2 ½-hour classroom session for 3-
to 4-year-old black children on weekday mornings and a 1 ½-hour home visit to
each mother and child on weekday afternoons” (Rolnick). The program lasted for 30 weeks and at 27 the
researchers interviewed the subjects.
They found that:
During elementary and
secondary school, Perry School participants were less likely to
be placed in a special
education program and had a significantly higher average achievement score at
age 14 than nonparticipants. Over 65 percent of program participants graduated
from regular high school compared with 45 percent of nonparticipants. At age 27,
four times as many program participants as nonparticipants earned $2,000 or
more per month. And only one-fifth as many program participants as
nonparticipants were arrested five or more times by age 27 (Rolnick).
Interestingly
this study also looked at what happened to the money invested in the children
during the study and what types of returns there were. They found that for
every dollar invested in the program eight were returned to society (Rolnick).
Years later analysts of the study decided that the return would be much greater
because the positive effects not only influenced the participants but also
their younger siblings and their children. This is a wonderful example of how
the chain of poverty can break with a decent early childhood education.
It is an exciting time to be
involved in education reform. Policy makers on a federal and state level are
beginning to realize what a great investment education is. The benefits of
equipping children with the skills necessary to become productive citizens of
their country will continue generation after generation. If there is any hope
to reduce or even to end poverty in the United States it lays in breaking the
continuous cycle of poverty once and for all. Catching and educating children
early ensures that they will form a solid foundation from which to grow.
Programs like Head Start and other smaller pre-k programs are beneficial but a
reshaping of these programs is overdue. Programs now should aim to educate the
whole family and create a safe place for children to learn and grow. Once
local, state and the federal government collaborate to create and fund highly
effective pre-k programs for all young children the county will begin to see a
reduction of poverty, teen pregnancy, and crime rates and an increase in college
graduates and positive contributions to society.
Works cited
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Sept. 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.
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Christakis, Erika. "The Catch-22 of Obam’s Preschool Plan." Times Idea. Time Magazine, 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.
Deming, D. (2009) Early
Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head
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Children of Teen Parents." FSU Center for Prevention & Early
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"Parents Influence Children's Success, Duke Social Psychologist
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Schwarz, Joel. "Children Whose Parents Smoked Are Twice as Likely
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