"> Anyone who pays attention to the unfolding debate over the propriety and educational effects of public investments in preschool and child development has encountered fears of "government" brainwashing. Though not all such fears emanate from the dark imaginings of the far right, that crowd is certainly far more vocal. (Never forget that the seeds of dreaded liberalism tomorrow find fertile ground in the preschool sand tables of today!).Judge Roy Moore, (left, at a younger age), the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was ousted after refusing to remove stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments from his court room, demonstrated this once again in this Internet column.

The column is a mish-mash of references to studies and research that he misapplies and misinterprets for his purposes. In addition to the usual rhetoric, however, the good judge added a new leap of logic that I've never seen anywhere. The "founding fathers," reared in 18th century colonial America, did not go to public schools and they did pretty well. Americans back then were the "most literate and well-informed in history," he contends, and "poetry, religion, and history flourished...without support from the state." I know that many critics of public education claim, without much foundation, that student achievement has been sliding the past three or four decades. But I had no idea that the zenith of U.S. education was in the 1750s! Sure, recreating slavery, ridding ourselves of 300 years of technology and medicine, and reclaiming our true heritage as colonies would be problematic, but is there any other way to be competitive in this global economy? Let's turn back the clock three centuries before it's too late!

The Hillary Project is a website dedicated to attacking anything the former First Lady and now Senator and presidential candidate says or does. Not surprisingly, the "Project" quickly picked up former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Moore's column (see item just below) recommending a return to the educational practices of the 1750s as a way to restore enlightenment and wisdom to the Republic. Hmmmm. So, let me see if I understand the strategy of the judge and his intellectual fellow travelers: How about we use the Internet to distribute a screed arguing for going back educationally to a time before electricity....

I know these are fringe elements but the point of view that rearing children prior to school ought to be in the hands of Mommy wearing an apron while Daddy goes off to work at the big office on the train remains strongly held by more people than a journalist might suspect.....talking to these people and letting their views be examined and questioned is an important task....

Poor Paris Hilton. It was heartbreaking seeing her sobbing through the window of the police car as she was taken to jail in Los Angeles County again. Maybe she didn't go to preschool...(Photo from New York Times)

Advocates for universal pre-school have to be careful about overselling. And media skepticism should help the advocates avoid that. Police chiefs seem particularly prone to this behavior. In Pennsylvania, where there's $75 million in new preschool monies being debated by the Legislature, the state's police chiefs have been among those leading the charge. A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story the other day quoted Pittsburgh Asst. Chief Paul Donaldson saying, "Quality pre-kindergarten programs are our most effective weapons in fighting crime." Really? More so than community policing?
The story also said the $75 million would generate a 17-to-1 return on investment, which is a figure that's tossed around far too easily.

Such statements have to be qualified and journalists have to do it--if the advocates are unwilling to do so. The 17-1 figure is based on the return over more than three decades from a program called the Perry Preschool Project that lasted for five years back in the 1960s. So, for Legislatures worried about balancing a budget today, the returns will accrue long after they've left public service. Also the program that would be expanded in Pennsylvania is not like the Perry Preschool, which was of much, much higher in terms of quality and cost. [See Update below] Plus, the Perry Preschool was aimed at very disadvantaged kids. It wasn't a universal program available to all. A universal program would not get rates of return anywhere close to these. Finally, it's true the Perry Preschool reduced crime but it didn't eliminate it. Those who went through Perry Preschool were, on average, likely to be arrested fewer times, not that they were not likely to have been arrested.

UPDATES: I checked out the Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts website. The state program looks to set quite high programmatic standards, relative to other states. Also, the new money that Gov. Rendell is pushing IS targeted to disadvantaged children. Still, the program wouldn't measure up to the Perry Preschool, which cost in 2007 dollars about $15,000 per child and had one teacher (trained in special education and early childhood development) for every seven children. (Pennsylvania requires one certified teacher and an aide for every 17 children.) It's true that most of the cost-benefits from the Perry experiment came from a reduction in crime: in fact, about $13 of the $17 return came from that source alone. A good, clear, dispassionate analysis of the economic returns of preschool programs can be found here. It's something every journalist who covers these issues should keep close as a resource.

For Jean Rimbach and Kathleen Carroll of the Bergen Record for their series on waste and fraud in New Jersey preschools, this time from the Casey Center on Children and Families. The series had picked up other awards earlier.

A story in the Philadelphia Tribune, which targets the city's African American community, illustrates the dangers of overselling the crimefighting powers of pre-k. House Republican leader Sam Smith and Democratic state Rep. Dwight Evans are sparring over just that. Smith has been saying Philadelphia has had Head Start and pre-k and still had more than 400 homicides last year. Evans and the city's police commissioner are saying spend more money on pre-k to cut crime. The story did a decent job of catching the back and forth. But the murders are happening now. An investment in pre-k will pay off but not next year or even for the next 10 years. Five year olds don't commit murders.

The Washington Post picked up on a report from the advocacy group Pre-K for All DC that says (no surprise) free pre-kindergarten would more than repay its cost. The actual study is not yet up on the group's Web site. But a quote from the Post story indicates that its authors tried to calculate the short-run economic benefits from expanding pre-k as well as the long-term gains. A high quality program would provide 6,300 jobs in the city, support working parents, and cut down on employee absenteeism, according to the article.

This kind of information is powerful. It is a compelling counterpoint to those who argue that the long-term gains don't justify the short-term expense, when balancing the budget is a priority. I'll look forward to reading the actual report but I was glad to read about it in the Post. However, the Post article does not mention how this study fits in with the many other recent economic analyses of pre-kindergarten's effects. Nor does it mention that the D.C. advocacy group is one of dozens pushing universal pre-k nationally. I know print reporters are being pressured to write short stories. Adding a paragraph providing readers with a little bit of context, just a pinch, would have been easy.

Hartford Courant reporter Hilary Waldman produced a fascinating, compelling story in yesterday's paper that was based on a....research study! But the story about a study of the effects of putting mental health consultants in pre-kindergarten classrooms was anything but dry. The spine of it was the story of a three-year-old boy named Terrence who was described by his teachers as a "human tornado," wreaking fear and destruction in the classroom. His teachers sought help and a state-funded program supplied a consultant, who helped them develop strategies for how to help Terrence learn to adjust socially.

The details in the story, the national context, the clear explanation of how the research was conducted and the human drama it captured--all were impressive. The article shows how richly visiting classrooms and making connections with real teachers, kids and their parents pays off journalistically. Journalism such as this will always find an audience no matter the "platform"--print or digital.

Sara Mead has an insightful and illuminating commentary on the similarities between school choice and universal pre-k advocates--two groups that likely would be uncomfortable rubbing shoulders at the same wonkfest. (Yes, it's a real word. You can look it up. Synonym is wonkapalooza) It's worth reading the whole thing. One insight, for example, is that both groups are committed to "redefining the boundaries of publicly-supported education--In preschool, to include younger children; in school choice to include private, charter, and other non-traditional schools."

One other similarity I'd add. School choicers want to privatize education through vouchers and subsidies for private charter management organizations. UPK-ers would prefer to have states invest preschool money in programs in public schools. But the fact that there is already a mature, mixed public-and-private school delivery system for preschool means that, inevitably, public dollars end up subsidizing private school operations. So....if public dollars can subsidize private preschools and private colleges (through loan subsidies and reseach grants), why the adamant opposition in so many places to doing so in K-12?

Story idea: As state legislatures are considering expanding spending on pre-kindergarten, examine the lobbying efforts of groups representing private preschools. You'll find they fight hard to maintain what they would call a level playing field, so that public spending on preschool doesn't put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Florida newspapers, television stations and bloggers all reported on the release of the state's so-called accountability system for the mostly private pre-kindergarten programs that get public money. Leslie Postal in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel came closest to calling the state accountability system what it is: a mess. As she points out, the state set an artificial limit of 15% on how many schools can be low-performing. That means, in reality, that 15% of the schools will be labeled substandard no matter how they do and schools that may be weak against an objective set of standards, but not as weak as others, will get a seal of approval. But there are two even bigger problems with the so-called accountability system: 1. It doesn't take into consideration the characteristics of the kids served or the size of gains they made. Not surprisingly, as Postal notes, "low performing" preschools had more poor, disabled, and Spanish-speaking kids. 2. It tests kids in kindergarten and attributes their performance to the preschools. What about the rapid development of kids that age? What about all the other influences in a child's life that are more significant?

Sure, we all want all kids to be the same. But can 540 hours (which is what the state pays for) of relatively low-quality preschool really make it so? Florida's preschool program satisfied only four of 10 quality criteria established by the National Institute of Early Education and Research and the state spends only $2,163 per child on the program (when part-year attendance is taken into consideration.) The effect of this so-called accountability system will be to discourage these private schools from accepting the very kids who need help the most.

The CBS affiliate in Tallahassee got right to the point. The Gainesville Sun did not take note of any of the shortcomings of the rankings. The Gradebook, the education Web log of the St. Petersberg, noted that the system was unfair but that so was life. The state says it is holding preschools accountable. Journalists should hold the state accountable for at least acknowledging that their accountability system is "low performing."

It's a long journey from kindergarten to high school graduation and even longer to adulthood. Those of us who think a lot about how kids get off to a good start on life's road sometimes forget about the bumpiness and dead-end exits along the way. Starting off in the right direction with a smooth-running vehicle full of gas does not mean one is assured of arriving at his destination safe and sound. Three good stories over the weekend are good reminders that, as important as it is to give kids a proper start, it doesn't necessarily assure them of a smooth ride through school or life.

Erin Einhorn and Carrie Melago of the New York Daily News worked backwards from interviewing a young man about to graduate from a New York high school who is headed to Carnegie Mellon to major in physics. They tracked down his kindergarten teacher, still in the classroom, and she led them to the class of children identified as gifted that she taught in 1994. Their story shows that pregnancy, violence, family instability, large, impersonal schools, uncaring teachers and many other unforeseen bumps in the road can make the ride rocky even for kindergarteners who are bright and ready for school. One girl who overcame the violent deaths of both of her parents to make it to graduation with the help of an iron-willed grandmother had this to say: "You have to have family support," she said. "You have to have a good relationship with teachers. You have to have motivation within yourself. ...And you have to have hope." Part three of the series is here.

Dale Mezzacappa, the veteran education writer for the Philly Inquirer who took a buyout sometime back, returned with a terrific profile of a class of 112 6th graders who had been guaranteed a college education by a rich Connecticut investor. George Weiss spent millions, mentored them, gave them tutoring, jobs and contacts and more. Now, 20 years later, Mezzacappa fills us in on where they ended up--and the news is mixed. Less than two-thirds of them graduated high school (twice the rate of other poor African Americans in Philadelphia from that year) and 20 earned bachelor's degrees.

Sara Rimer of the New York Times had a front-page profile that looked at the friendship of two very different girls, who became one another's support system through high school. Their friendship helped them get to graduation with good
grades and glowing recommendations--despite trials rivaling those of Job. Again, the point's the same: a great preschool experience is certainly a good start--a full tank of gas in a car that runs, as it were. But teachers, friends, resilience, luck, opportunities, family stability and so much more are required along the way.

(By the way, all three have audio, slide shows and other stories that add to the printed stories. At the NY Times site you can watch the commencement address given by Queen, one of the two girls Rimer profiles.)