By Dale C. Farran, PhD
A Picture of Current Early Childhood Classrooms
For those who have not visited a pre-kindergarten or Head Start class recently (or for any length of time), I want to begin with a snapshot of the experiences many children are receiving. Some of the experiences may vary depending on whether the classroom is a pre-K one in an elementary school or a Head Start classroom in a center. In pre-k classrooms associated with elementary schools, the primary method of instruction you will see takes place in a whole classroom group – 18-20 children sitting in a circle being instructed by the teacher, often for 20-30 minutes at a time, but sometimes longer. Small group instruction is seldom used.
Across large and small groups, teacher-directed basic skills instruction is prioritized over activities that encourage children to explore independently or collaboratively with peers, with the consequence that children’s attention and interest in the more exploratory activities (e.g., during “center time”) wanes over the year. Moreover, students have remarkably little opportunity to engage with peers.
After large group time, the next most frequent experience for children is the time they spend in transition between classroom activities, many of which are necessitated by factors such as a lack of a bathroom connected to the classroom or a requirement that children eat in the main cafeteria. The amount of time spent on this is also noteworthy. Children often spend little time outside, with some classrooms providing no outdoor time at all. Multiple transitions, lengthy whole-group instruction, and limited time to run around freely or engage independently in learning result in teachers frequently having to manage behavior, sometimes in a negative manner.
In terms of pedagogical practices and teaching quality, children are generally treated as passive recipients of academic content. Teachers talk most of the time; children get to talk much less frequently, and interactive conversations between teachers and children are rare. Thus, it is challenging for teachers to differentiate instruction; by not listening to children, teachers have limited opportunities to learn what their children know and think. Instruction is focused on basic skills; inferential questions such as “how do you know? what do you think? “, and ” why?”, and higher-level content are seldom observed.
This picture may not align with what policymakers think these classrooms are like, and it should alarm everyone. Early education classrooms have undergone significant changes in the last 15-20 years, but not for the better. A legitimate question to raise is how we arrived at this point. How did we transition from a robust field of early childhood development, dominated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), to the picture painted above, where many teachers may not even be aware of NAEYC? The history is an interesting one.
History of Increased Focus on School Readiness Skills
The United States has debated the quality and focus of its educational system throughout its history, most notably after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, in 1957. Following the launch of Sputnik, American education was criticized for not providing rigorous instruction, particularly in math and science. There was pushback. Conant’s 1959 book on high schools asserted that American high schools were not as bad as they were perceived to be and, in fact, were unique in the world in their structure and comprehensive student population served.
This same tension between viewing American schools as failures or successes was reflected in the 1983 report from the US Secretary of Education entitled “A Nation at Risk.” This 30-page report continued the dire categorization of schools: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
Improving American education through enhancing educational outcomes for students by beginning earlier (and bypassing what were perceived to be failing school districts) and focusing on children from poor families was one of the strong motivators for creating Head Start in 1965. Another contributor to the new emphasis on learning in younger children was the early results from experimental early childhood programs, such as Weikart’s in Ypsilanti and Susan Gray’s program in Nashville, which indicated that improvements in young children’s achievement were possible. Although these research programs focused on cognitive performance, most Head Start center directors surveyed in 1966 preferred a “supportive, unstructured program rather than a structured informational program,” which was termed a “total effort” approach.
However, the 1969 Westinghouse-Ohio evaluation found few effects for Head Start when children were in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades (Cicirelli, 1969). Public outcry against the study was immediate and huge. Congress viewed the program as a worthy focus on poverty, but in a manner that was not a political threat, unlike other aspects of President Johnson’s War on Poverty.
Shortly thereafter, Lazar and colleagues began the Consortium for Longitudinal Studies. Following up on 11 of those experimental early childhood programs and pooling their data, they demonstrated long-term effects, not on achievement test scores but on such outcomes as decreased retention in grade and special education placement. In Lazar’s obituary, he is characterized as having “saved Head Start funding” through his lobbying efforts with Congress, sharing these findings even though the program effects he portrayed had little to do with Head Start except that they involved young children.
From the 1980s onward, Head Start has enjoyed steady funding and relative support from presidents of both parties. However, at times, various presidents have suggested moving Head Start into the Department of Education. These ideas were never instituted, given the vociferous opposition from those in support of Head Start. However, pressure grew on Head Start to demonstrate its effectiveness.
Prior to reauthorization in 1998, Congress requested a GAO overview of research on Head Start effectiveness. Of the 600 research studies located by GAO, only 22 met the GAO criteria for credible research, and none were strong enough to demonstrate Head Start effectiveness. Thus, in 1998, Congress mandated a rigorous study of Head Start’s effectiveness. The Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) began collecting data from a randomized sample of Head Start centers in 2002 and was published in 2010. The focus of the HSIS was primarily on school readiness outcomes; the results were mixed at best at the end of the program year and gone entirely by 3rd grade.
In the meantime, and parallel to the emphasis on early childhood, was another major component of the War on Poverty — the 1965 passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Since its inception, the ESEA has “consistently remained the largest fiscal source of federal funding for educationally vulnerable children.” The 1988 amendment to the act allowed Chapter 1 (also known as Title I) funds to be used to establish preschool programs. These were among the first early childhood programs to be housed in public elementary schools and overseen by school districts.
Under George W. Bush, ESEA was reauthorized as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Soon after its passage, the Bush administration launched the “Good Start, Grow Smart” initiative, focusing on early childhood. One of its main purposes was to encourage states to develop early learning standards for children ages 3-5 to align with the K-12 standards to “ensure that young children are equipped with the skills they will need to start school ready to learn.”
New accountability requirements also focused on the Head Start program. Every Head Start center was expected to assess their children for meeting standards of learning in early literacy, language, and numeracy. The Bush administration asserted that although the 1999 Head Start reauthorization required the program to use standards (most of which involved very specific, concrete literacy skills), these standards had not been implemented by Head Start. The administration declared that it would evaluate Head Start programs by whether they prepared children to meet the standards.
Under the Obama administration, NCLB became the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The emphasis on specific skills to be mastered remained: “all States must develop or demonstrate the existence of early learning and developmental guidelines that describe what all children from birth to kindergarten entry should know and be able to do across multiple domains of learning.”
Under NCLB, states became acutely aware of the lack of educational progress for their most disadvantaged students. Making up the “achievement gap” between blacks and whites, between children of high- and low-income families, became a priority. Many states focused on early childhood education as the solution. Advocates convinced state legislatures that state funding should support pre-kindergarten programs for children from low-income families.
Most of the research on the effectiveness of these programs suffers from weak methodological designs. Findings from one large randomized control study of a statewide program do not support beliefs in prekindergarten’s long-term effectiveness. On the contrary, children who had been randomly assigned (from oversubscribed sites) to attend pre-k (compared with those who applied but did not get a spot) have significantly poorer achievement in 3rd through 6th grades. Moreover, the children who attended pre-k had significantly more suspensions and expulsions. Unlike expectations, they did not have fewer grade retentions or special education placements.
In sum, over the years, in all publicly funded programs (federal and state), pressure for accountability has grown. The areas of development for which the programs should be accountable have been increasingly defined as concrete school readiness skills, primarily early literacy. No rigorous evaluation supports this emphasis, and at least one, in fact, provides troubling findings of negative effects. Perhaps it is time to reconsider the skills young children need to be successful in school as well as the ways they develop those skills.
Alternatives
More positive experiences for young children can be observed in some very particular group contexts. Unfortunately, these contexts tend to be available to families who have resources and who choose specific kinds of experiences for their children — perhaps as an extension of the family context. Many nursery schools, high-end childcare centers, and special programs like Montessori, Waldorf, and outdoor or “nature” preschools, among others, provide young children with positive, enriching experiences. The desire of economically secure families to protect their children from the recent increased focus on basic skills and direct instruction in early education extends to kindergarten, where higher-income families are twice as likely to “redshirt” their children (holding them back a year) than lower-income families.
If higher-income families are concerned about the academic pressures on their young children and choose to pay for programs that are positively affirming and very experiential in nature, why would we assume that young children from poorer families should be subjected to a completely different set of experiences?
Recently, the father of a three-year-old indicated that he and his wife were considering moving the child from his childcare situation to a pre-k classroom in an elementary school in a large city. “What was wrong with his childcare situation?” I asked. “Nothing,” he replied, “in fact, it was wonderful, the child had many friends and the teachers were lovely.” “Why would you want to move him?” I asked. “Because childcare costs us $24,000 a year and the pre-k classroom will provide free care for at least part of the day.”
Many U.S. parents find themselves on the horns of this same terrible dilemma, having to choose “school” for their children instead of the “care” they might prefer. The United States is the only highly developed country that does not support families and subsidize care for its young children. The type of childcare that lower- and middle-income parents in the U.S. can afford is abysmal – poorly trained staff, high turnover rates because of low wages, and poor benefits. But the alternative to this untenable situation should not be schools for very young children.
Governments in most highly developed countries heavily subsidize the care for young children prior to school age. Nordic countries all provide a child supplement to parents, which most parents use to offset the modest cost of the government-subsidized group care, care that looks nothing like U.S. pre-k programs. These programs stress different sorts of competencies in young children, capabilities like “participation” or the ability to be a functioning member of a group (not sitting “criss-cross applesauce” for 20-40 minutes during large group instruction). The programs stress self-reliance and independence, the ability to make good decisions, and to be responsible for one’s actions. Most of these countries delay formal instruction in academic skills until children are six or seven. Their children do quite well in international comparisons in the later grades.
Conclusion
Concerns about the accelerating academic focus in early childhood education are being voiced by many. The question is whether this train has gathered too much steam to be able to turn it around. Recent scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) may provide more support for a change in emphasis. Despite the increased focus on teaching reading and literacy skills earlier and earlier, including in pre-k and kindergarten, NAEP reading scores have declined to the level they were in 1992. We need policymakers to understand that the care children need before entering kindergarten is not the same as going to school. If only all the money currently being spent on pre-k programs could be redirected to providing more appropriate and stable childcare, our children – and their families — would be far better off.
Dale Clark Farran is an Emerita Professor at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. Dale was part of the team evaluating Tennessee’s pre-k program. You can read more about the findings from their study here https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9716729/
