The idea was generated in December 2010 when the school district’s board of education approved funding for the pre-K teachers over a four-year period. Sixty have been hired so far, with an additional 60 slated to be added by the 2014-2015 school term.
A report from the district last year shows full-day early childhood education students scored higher on a series of literacy measures than half-day students. The assessments measured alphabet knowledge, concepts about print, phonological awareness and reading comprehension.
Another component of the pre-K plan is a partnership with the Inasmuch Foundation, which has agreed to finance the additional classrooms.
“They (Inasmuch Foundation) told us, ‘You guys hire the teachers and we will provide the ground for each classroom you have,’” said district Superintendent Karl Springer. “The plan is to give every 4-year-old in Oklahoma City the chance to attend all-day pre-K. This could be a generational way to fix the strategy so kids will read on grade level.”
A new law that goes into effect for the 2013-2014 school term mandates third-grade students must read at their grade level before moving on to the next grade.
“We want to front-load this thing and get kids [reading] on grade level by the time they get to kindergarten and first grade, and then emphasize reading all the way through [school],” Springer said. “After third grade, you are reading to learn and no longer learning to read. That’s one of the strongest reasons you want a good pre-K program. What we know is children learn how to read by the third grade. After that, there’s a statistical probability they won’t graduate from high school.”
Enjoying childhood
But Rhonda Joy Vansant, a Georgia education-reform activist and author of Education as It Could Be, argues that early childhood education is doing more harm than good.
“I’m not against pre-K, but when it becomes kindergarten, that’s a problem,” she said. “We need to give them as normal and happy childhoods as we can. Right now, we’re saying every 4-year-old will have to do this and this. We’re trying to make everyone fit into one box while ignoring individual human development and different needs the children have. We’re not taking the whole child into consideration.”
But Vansant appears to be in the minority. Most educators, especially in Oklahoma, say early childhood education is paramount to future years of academic success.
Oklahoma established the Early Childhood 4-Year-Old Program in 1980 as part of a pilot project with the goal of eventually serving all potential pre-K students in the state. Ten years later, it received statewide funding, although enrollment was limited to kids who were eligible for federal Head Start. Districts were allowed to provide early childhood education to other 4-year-olds through local funds or tuition.
In 1998, Oklahoma became the second state in the nation to offer free, voluntary access to pre-K. Enrollment has steadily increased since then. Currently, pre-K programs are offered in 98 percent of the state’s public school districts.
Ramona Paul, a leading pioneer in Oklahoma’s early childhood education, said full-day pre-K allows youngsters the opportunity to gain socialization skills and learn appropriate behavior on an individual and group basis.
The pre-K program as it exists today is “exactly what I envisioned,” said Paul, a former assistant state superintendent.
“Our state requires that the teacher is certified in early childhood education, which is the highest standard in the country,” Paul said. “It’s a voluntary program, which makes it parentdriven. If the parents didn’t like it, the students wouldn’t be there.”
About 75 percent of all Oklahoma 4-years-olds are enrolled in a public school pre-K program, she said.
While short-term benefits from pre-K education are undeniable, some research suggests those effects might fade over time. From 1992 to 2005, when Oklahoma invested heavily in pre-K, the state ranked in the bottom 10 in progress on fourth-grade reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Critics of that research, however, believe using 1992 NAEP data as a baseline is misleading since pre-K wasn’t available statewide until 1998.
If researchers instead used 2002 as a baseline for Oklahoma, white and Hispanic children showed statistically significant progress in math scores.
Still, the research illustrates that pre-K’s long-range benefits remain an issue for debate.
National model
Oklahoma’s
pre-K program has become an example for other states. Its admirers
include President Barack Obama, who has pointed to the Sooner State’s
early childhood education initiative as a model in his proposal to make
pre-K available to every child nationwide.
“In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children, like Georgia or Oklahoma, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job and form more stable families of their own,” Obama said in his Feb. 13 State of the Union speech. “So let’s do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.”
Obama said that every dollar spent on pre-K can save $7 later on by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy and reducing violent crime — a figure often cited by another pre-K advocate, former Gov. Brad Henry.
In 2011, Oklahoma spent $3,500 in state funds and its Head Start partnerships brought total average spending to $7,700 per pre-K student, which is significantly more than most other states, according to the National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER). Oklahoma’s pre-K program also met nine out of 10 of NIEER’s quality benchmarks.
The advocates of early childhood education say it’s money well spent.
“You can talk to a kindergarten teacher, and she can tell you, ‘This [student] went to pre-K, and this one didn’t,’” said Pam Hibbs, director of early childhood education at OKC Public Schools. “When a student attends pre-K, it makes a significant difference in reading, alphabet knowledge and comprehension.”
The Tulsa example
In
2003, researchers from Georgetown University conducted a study of
Tulsa’s pre-K program and discovered those students scored higher in
letter-word identification, spelling and applied problems than children
who were not exposed to the pre-K curriculum.
The study’s results showed pre-K students were seven months ahead of their counterparts in letter-word identification, six months ahead in spelling and four months ahead in the applied problems category.
In addition, the study concluded that all racial and ethnic groups benefit from early childhood education. Hispanic and black students experienced statistically significant gains for all three tests. American Indian and white students showed significant gains in two of the three tests. —Tim Farley
Thanks for the article. I find the president’s comments curious. “In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children -- like Georgia or Oklahoma -- studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, and form more stable families of their own,” he said. Yet Oklahoma’s universal preschool program began in 1998, meaning the program’s first participants are still teenagers. And yet the president assures us they’re more likely to hold a job and form stable families?
Indeed, “there is little evidence that taxpayers and children are benefiting” from Oklahoma’s preschool program, writes Heritage Foundation research fellow Lindsey Burke. And it’s not just NAEP scores. In a recent Wall Street Journal column (“The Dispiriting Evidence on Preschool”), Shikha Dalmia and Lisa Snell give Oklahoma’s program an “F” when it comes to improving graduation rates, closing the minority achievement gap, and lowering teen births (contra the president’s assertion on forming stable families).
You mention the Tulsa example, but no less an expert than Russ Whitehurst, the former director of the Institute of Education Sciences within the U.S. Department of Education, is not persuaded by the Tulsa evidence. Dr. Whitehurst, now a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution, says “the research design of the Tulsa study is critically flawed.” Studies such as those offer only “thin empirical gruel,” he says, and “fall far short of providing a convincing case for investment in universal pre-K.” Even James Heckman, the economist beloved of Oklahoma’s preschool advocates, says “I would be cautious” of reading too much into statewide programs like Oklahoma’s. “I don’t find them as convincing,” he says.
Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen and his co-authors, in their book Disrupting Class, concluded that universal pre-K is “an ineffective mechanism for addressing the challenge of better preparing children for school.”
Ms. Paul says of Oklahoma’s preschool program, “If the parents didn’t like it, the students wouldn’t be there.” Well, yes -- Oklahoma parents signing little Johnny up for preschool routinely blurt out to reporters how much money they’ll be saving in daycare costs. And as George Bernard Shaw taught us, "a government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
But consider this fascinating result from a 2011 SoonerPoll survey. “In two important ways, Oklahoma is a national leader in early childhood education,” the surveyor said. “First, among all the states Oklahoma has the highest percentage of four-year-olds in state-funded preschool programs. Secondly, Oklahoma is one of the few states that offer a tax break for stay-at-home parents. Assuming there is a limited amount of money, which of the following do you think should take precedence: Increasing the amount of money spent on preschool programs for four-year-olds, or expanding the tax break for parents who stay at home with their four-year-olds?"
In what preschool boosters could only regard as a colossal narrative-fail, it turns out Oklahoma parents prefer the tax break, and by a margin of 55 percent to 31 percent. Among women, the margin is 51 percent to 35 percent. Among women with household income under $35,000, the margin is 55 percent to 29 percent.
“At best, universal pre-K is a babysitting service,” writes best-selling career-management author Penelope Trunk. Calling universal pre-K “a throwback to pre-1970s feminism,” she says it “does very little for working women,” takes away “the very idea of choice that women have been fighting for,” and is “out of sync with what families need.”