The word "kindergarten," as just about everyone knows, comes from the German words for "children" and "garden." It was supposed to be a metaphor for a place where young children would develop at their own pace, nurtured by language, play, art, music and laughter. But from Mobile Register reporter Rena Havner comes news that educators in Mobile, Alabama have apparently forgotten the meaning and intent of kindergarten. Starting this year, kindergarten teachers there are required to "grade" their children starting the second week of school in five subjects, using tests or grades on assignments or performance. Here's a quote from the story:

To make an A, students at Mobile's E.R. Dickson Elementary School, for example, must speak in complete sentences during show-and-tell and use descriptive words. Points are lost if the teacher has to prompt the student to speak. "They're not going to make a 100 if I have to say, 'And then what did you do with it?'" said Vivian Schultz, who has been teaching kindergarten for 24 years and has some concerns with the new grading policy. [snip] The result, said Schultz: "Teach, teach; test. Teach, teach; test."

The story (published Nov. 12) quotes teachers and other educators in favor and against. But I'd like to hear what parents think. And what about experts in child development? The story cries out for follows. I'll keep looking for them.

The lead story in the New York Times on Monday reports on a series of studies showing that achievement gaps are not closing much, despite NCLB. The generally gloomy story implies that schools alone cannot be expected to wipe out such gaps. But the story does note that experts think expanding prekindergarten to more kids will help. One such bright spot is Edwin E. Weeks Elementary School in Syracuse where the gap between black and white students has narrowed. The Times story says that the school's principal, Dare Dutter, credited a prekindergarten program and a school health clinic that helped keep poor students from missing class.

So, what kind of teaching makes a difference? And, by extension, what should journalists who visit pre-kindergartens look for? They should look for instruction to be woven into activities that give children "choices to explore and play." No drill and kill called for. Pianta says what works is:
– explicit instruction in key skills (teaching matters)
– sensitive and emotionally warm interactions (relationships matter)
– feedback (how'm I doing?)
– verbal engagement/stimulation (talk, talk, talk, words, words, words)
– a classroom environment that is not overly structured or regimented. (they're kids!)

Too often journalists fall into the trap of thinking that instruction is boring and borders on child abuse. In fact, learning can be joyful and fun, even for 4- and 5-year-olds. So, let's stop with the false dichotomies between teaching and play.

University of Virginia Prof. Robert Pianta has a piece in the new edition of Education Next that says high quality teaching in pre-kindergarten can close achievement gaps between emotionally troubled children and the children of mothers with little education But Pianta writes that in the schools studied only about a quarter of the four-year-olds in the schools studied are lucky enough to get high quality instruction and emotional support. He also notes that just as in K-12, standard measures of teacher quality -- degrees and experience -- are not reliable proxies for quality and tend not to be consistently related to gains in achievement. So, he writes, classroom performance matters more than credentials and courses taken.

Terrific, agenda-setting piece in the New York Times Sunday magazine on the achievement gap and No Child Left Behind. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to understand, let alone write about, inequality in education and what might be required to reduce it. By an editor at the magazine, Paul Tough, the article explores the ways economic and social class affects children, especially in terms of language development and attitudes toward schooling. The article goes on to effectively argue that schooling must be more effective and focused on helping poor children learn how to learn if the achievement gap is to shrink. Journalistically, the piece trusts readers to be willing to wrestle with the findings of education research in coming to grips with these issues. That’s an accomplishment right there.

By the way, the article also says that high quality early education is essential for closing achievement gaps. This has become a mantra of journalists of late. More attention to what high-quality pre-kindergarten looks like would be welcome too.

I decided to blog on the "unschooling" story because letters appeared in the Times today. A letter writer from Candor, NY repeats the notion that "when a child is ready to read, he will read." When a child is ready to spell properly, he or she will do so. When a child is ready to learn calculus, he or she will do so, same as Galileo. The basic philosophy of the "unschooling" troops seems to be that "government" schools "force" kids to learn, brainwashing them rather than enlightening them. Reminds me of a tour of schools in New Zealand I made while reporting for the Los Angeles Times. I was telling an ed-school prof there that I had come to report on the whole language reading instruction methods so popular down there. "Oh," she said to me in her lovely New Zealand accent, "instruction seems so, I don't know, medieval." Had I been quicker, I would have replied: "Oh, really. I've always thought of instruction as rather Renaissance."

I've been biting my tongue before commenting on the story on the "unschooling" movement that appeared over the weekend in the New York Times. "Unschooling" is a term coined in 1977 by John Holt, author of "Teach Your Own." It means that rather than be taught by adults, kids ought to be free to explore their world at their own pace, discovering knowledge and skills by tripping over them. It's one of those quirky, fringe notions that seems to capture journalists' imaginations. (Maybe because they secretly want to be unleashed from controlling editors!) Stories have appeared in the Kansas City Star, MSNBC, local television stations and elsewhere of late. A typical line in such stories is that kids, left to their own devices, will learn to read when they're "ready," almost by magic. I'd like to suggest that all future stories about unschooling include a line that says: "Learning to speak is natural, and brains are hardwired by millions of years of evolution to do so. But reading is an unnatural act and must be taught."

My ranting yesterday about "unschooling" and the coverage of it (see below) led me to snoop around on the web a bit and I learned that the homeschool/unschool crowd is adamantly opposed to publicly funded pre-kindergarten. It shouldn't have been a surprise, I suppose, that the folks who oppose "government" schools would be opponents of public spending on education. (They still pay taxes for schools, even if they don't send their kids there.) But the rhetoric is still stunning. An article in the homeschoolers magazine on the California universal pre-kindergarten initiative that fell short last spring decries what it calls the "war on toddlers." The article claims the national campaign to expand pre-kindergarten is driven by callous parents who feel they're entitled to "free daycare," that its goal is to "manage" Latinos, or to fix the problem of paying for social security by producing workers. The author, a vocal opponent of the California measure, says the government wants to "intern" and "institutionalize" kids to serve the interests of the state.

Sometimes journalists can't see a story in the campaign to increase public spending on pre-kindergarten. "Everyone's for it," they say, and so there's none of the tension and conflict that can give a story juice. I highlight this point of view to show that, indeed, there are opponents and they don't mind playing hardball. But though this language may seem extreme, it's not that different from what you'll hear from the Heritage Foundation or even from some liberals who worry that public spending on preschool has to mean a "one-size-fits-all", "standardized" education. Journalists ought to familiarize themselves with this complex political landscape.

Sue Shellenbarger, who writes the Work & Family column for the Wall Street Journal reports on new Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing more women staying home to be with their young children. She reports that about-to-be-released data shows that women from all income groups are tending to stay out of the workforce, usually for one to three years. The column notes the case of a mother and father who are teachers in Overland Park, Kansas, and who say that their knowledge about how babies' brains grow was a major factor in the mothers' decision to stop working after their twins, now 2½, and their third child, now 15 months old, were born. At home, Ms. Gunderson says, "I try to make sure everything we do together involves some kind of learning."

A very thoughtful comment on my entry on the Times' magazine piece critiqued it for not giving enough ink to what happens to children from birth on. The writer urged me to read a summary of the 1994 "Starting Points" report from the Carnegie Corp. I did and doing so got my reporterly juices flowing. The report noted that, relative to other developed countries, the U.S. was doing a poor job of providing prenatal care and high quality child care, and was seeing a rise in the number of children living in poverty. The report also said children were growing up with little attention from parents and in single-parent homes, due to divorce and a rise in births to unmarried mothers. The commenter suggested that journalists should be asking: "What Early Intervention Programs have been put into place as a result of
that report? Where are they? What follow-up studies have been done? How has
the Federal Government responded to the report? Is the US still lagging far
behind other industrialized nations in addressing this issue? This is the
true SHAME of our society. Those who analyze test scores never get the
point. The cycle of poverty puts generations at risk before they even enter
this world."

Just in November the government reported that 38% of births are to unwed mothers, an all-time record and twice the percentage it was in the 1980s.

The San Antonio Express-News has a very well-written, thoroughly reported package of stories and graphics on the increasingly academic nature of kindergarten. But, unlike a lot of coverage of this issue, the Express-News' piece delves into both the academic challenges disadvantaged kids face as well as the dilemmas that confront educators who are striving to help them catch up and thrive.

For other journalists interested in exploring this subject, this story offers both a good model and several researchers to turn to: they include Sam Meisels and Frances Stott of the Erikson Institute, Jack Fletcher of the University of Houston, and Dominic Gullo of Queens College, here in New York City. Part of the package is a graphic showing the rate at which various Texas school districts hold back kindergartners. Other journalists could track down this data in the communities they cover and explore the reasons for any disparities they turn up.

The three-part series in the San Antonio Express-News on the transformation of kindergarten is now available here. I like a lot about the series. All of its pieces were meticulously reported and instructive, in the sense that they gave readers insights into the dilemmas and decisions of educators in trying to figure out what's best for kids. It was not sensational in any way but it was interesting and filled with real examples. Different viewpoints were offered but it didn't feel like the "he said-she said" stuff that I often see. I also liked that the reporters talked to a lot of kindergarten teachers who seemed like they were given the freedom to express their professional opinion.

Word to principals and supes who try to "gag" teachers and administrators to prevent them from talking to reporters (OK, that phrasing is probably oh so five years ago, but forgive me, I only hang out on a college campus....) You don't get this kind of coverage that explores the issues you deal with all the time, and that helps parents and policy makers understand those issues, unless you provide access to your classrooms and trust your teachers....

The chorus of governors touting a full day of kindergarten--devoted to learning and not just that silly playing around stuff--continues to grow. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is offering $25 million for districts' startup costs. But Hoosier educators say creating the space for full day kindergarten could cost $200 million statewide. The Indianapolis Star made a good contribution to the public's understanding of the investment required by surveying the facilities needs of the districts in their area, and reporting on how many kids attend fullday kindergarten now. The team of reporters assigned to the story also got into the educational issues. One angle I haven't seen reported elsewhere:

"IPS teachers fight off assumptions that full-day kindergarten amounts to baby-sitting on the state's dime. Kindergartners at School 60 on the Near Northside study continents and oceans on world maps, count money and learn the days of the week....Kindergarten isn't like what it used to be, when they would go to play, socialize, take a nap," Whicker said. "That's history. We have structured curricular time."

I was traveling last week so didn't catch up with the terrific Wall Street Journal (as in funny, terrifying, depressing) story about what they called "BlackBerry Orphans," kids who are neglected as their parents compulsively check email on the devices. The story tells the story of kids trying to put limits on their parents' usage, which extends to the dinner table, while driving, during school plays, and so on.

A few parents say "BlackBerry" is in their toddlers' early vocabulary. Lucas Ellin, a Los Angeles 5-year-old, pretends he has his own, parading around the house with a small toy in his hand while shriking, "Look, Mommy, it's my BlackBerry."

Another story I'd like to see has to do with cell phone usage. When I'm out running in Manhattan or elsewhere I see parents pushing strollers or walking hand-in-hand with their child while talking on their cell phone. The time parents spend with their kids talking to them and answering their questions and discussing all that they are seeing is infinitely valuable for their development and learning. So, when these parents are out with their kids but have their minds elsewhere, they're not really doing much good. Better to let the nanny take the kids and talk to them than you, Mom or Dad, go somewhere with the kids but spend the whole time talking on the cellphone.

The term "readiness" for kindergarten is one that makes me sort of itchy and uncomfortable. I started feeling that way when I read this otherwise innocuous column in a little paper out in Oregon. The column reports that one in five Oregon five-year-olds are "not ready" for kindergarten and that the state ranks 40 out of 50 in terms of the percentage of four-year-olds enrolled in pre-kindergarten. Remember that all kids are ready for learning--their brains (like ours) are hardwired that way. Meanwhile, kindergarten is getting more academic and putting more emphasis on learning. But it doesn't necessarily follow, though, that those coming into kindergarten who are not reading and doing math aren't "ready" for kindergarten. Kindergarten is not like college. Five-year-olds shouldn't have to qualify to get into it and be held back until they're "ready." This stuff worries me because I've seen some charts from researchers that seem to argue that 80% or more of kids aren't "ready" for kindergarten. The standard such data seems to use is that some kids--those who have all the advantages, who have had $15,000 per year pre-school experiences, who have had violin lessons from the age of 3 on--are more advanced at age 5 than others. Therefore, anyone not at the top, top, top of the chart in terms of development is said to be "not ready" for kindergarten. I don't buy it.

The substantive point of my rant is that a great story for journalists would be to talk to kindergarten teachers about what it is that they think makes kids "kindergarten ready." What they're likely to find, and I'm speculating here, is that those who teach kindergarten are thrilled if kids come in being able to sit still in a group, to share, to play with others, to listen, In other words, the social, non-cognitive skills. If the kids know their colors, letters and can hold a pencil that's nice too. Being able to do differential equations and quote Shakespeare? Nice. But not required.

The Washington Post had a frontpager Sunday about the rapid spread of the elementary school version of the International Baccalaureate program. I really like how the story takes the reader inside this program and these classrooms and gives one a very clear sense of the instruction and expectations.

Here's an excerpt:

The program seeks to mold students, from preschool age on, into "transdisciplinary" and bilingual scholars who can deliver a major academic project by fifth grade and then move into deeper studies in secondary schools and beyond. (IB middle schools also exist.) Critics wonder whether it's all a bit much for a student demographic that still receives scratch-and-sniff stickers on written work.

The story quotes a mother, speaking about her husband's motivation for enrolling the kids in IB: "He was like, 'Our kids are going to an Ivy League school, and we need an education that's going to get them on the right track.' "

By the way, I'm collecting statements and references to how preschool will get kids on track for 1. The Ivy League. 2. Science Careers 3. To Become Doctors. Please send in your nominations!

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post starts 2007 in a position he's often in, which is way ahead of the competition. Mathews' notes that on the 100th anniversary of Italian physician Maria Montessori opening her first pre-kindergarten, the philosophy is picking up momentum in the U.S. There are about 5,000 Montessori schools nationwide, about 300 of them public. Mathews says Montessori and John Dewey, the Teachers College colossus, were the two most influential 20th-century promoters of a "progressive," child-centered approach to learning. He says Montessori had a much bigger impact because she started schools.

I take issue with a couple points Mathews' makes. He says that the "unstructured" nature of Montessori classrooms is at odds with the "structured" classrooms common today. And he quotes a scholar who says that Montessori believed that kids learned best when they were active and having fun. The implication, then, is that "structured" classrooms, in other words, classrooms where the teacher plays an important role, cannot be fun nor active. I think journalists should keep in mind that the best teachers, especially in pre-kindergarten, have classrooms that are highly structured and intentional. But structure doesn't have to mean regimentation or boredom. Good teachers use structure--of time use, regular one-on-one interactions and lots of conversation--to support and encourage active learning. John Dewey also believed in active learning. But he said that activity for the sake of activity is worthless. Activities, he said, had to be "educative" to be of value. And that implies activities that are carefully planned and, yes, structured.

"The Pursuit of Happyness," the well-reviewed and successful movie starring Will Smith, is worth seeing. Education is a big theme. Chris Gardner is a smart guy who ends up homeless with his young son while he's trying to become a stock broker. He studies day and night to pass a broker's test. Gardner passed, got the job and went on to start his own bond trading firm and become fabulously successful.

In the movie, Gardner takes his son everyday to what he thinks is a good pre-school. He finds out his son spends most of his time watching television. When he confronts the proprietor, she says he can't expect to get anything more for the amount he's paying. Lots of working folks find themselves confronted by the same agonizing dilemma, knowing that this precious time is being wasted but being unable to afford something better.

The other plot point involving a current education issue has to do with that test. Many folks in the anti-testing crowd argue that a) tests can't measure all that a child knows, b) tests are inherently biased, c) some people aren't good test-takers and so on. In the hard, cruel, pragmatic world of work, however, sometimes a test is a hurdle you have to get over to get a job or promotion (think police officers, fire fighters, CPAs, attorneys, doctors, etc.). Learning to study and to do well on tests is not such a bad skill to learn in school.

Good piece in USA Today on Wednesday about parents who want their kids to start learning many languages when they're as young as two years old. Language, we all know, develops early. And it turns out that kids can learn several languages simultaneously and manage to keep them separate and to speak each of them without an accent. Story tells about a child who is four who is fluent in Japanese and Spanish as well as English. I must say I was just a bit dubious about that claim because the girl is the daughter of the proprietor of school where the child learned those languages. The school starts kids as young as six months in a program called Baby Boot Camp, which combines foreign language with strength training, balance and coordination exercises.

You've heard adults go on and on about how kids today don't know how to just go out and "play." Play dates, TV and video games have seemingly replaced just playing in the dirt, digging up the yard, making mud pies? OK, so city kids don't have yards where they can do this. But kids in Manhattan will soon get the chance. Story on the front page of the NY Times Wednesday described plans to create a new type of playground where kids can dig in the sand, move it around, play with water and here's the bonus...the playground will have adult play consultants to help the kids learn this strange new concept of open-ended play, driven by imagination.

Here's the key quote: “Very little time is spent by kids in playgrounds if they have a choice,” said Roger Hart, who...is the director of the Children’s Environments Research Group at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “They limit the repertoire of play to children’s physical activity,” instead of encouraging the kind of social, sensory, interactive and individual fantasy play that children need, Mr. Hart said.

What's going on the playgrounds at school or in the park? Is play part of the curriculum in elementary school? Or, are those scare stories about recess being cancelled for first graders in favor of "drills" really true?

My friend Joanne Jacobs was kind enough to take note on her blog of yesterday's rant on the column in the NY Times heralding a teacher who brought to her classroom her pet dog as an audience for a reluctant reader. Joanne added something I should have said. By the end of 3rd grade, the boy the teacher was trying to help had progressed to reading picture books on his own. So, as Joanne notes, he's now where he should have been in the fall of first grade.

Apropos of the NYTs frontpager on playgrounds and play, came across a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics saying that the rush-rush, overscheduled, academically stressful lives of children are preventing them from playing. The report says play isn't really playtime. In fact, "free and unstructured play is healthy and essential for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones as well as helping them manage stress and become resilient." Reminds me of a phrase I heard once: "The work of children is play." In other words, there's lots of learning going on on the playground, in the activity areas of pre-k's, on the floor with Mom and Dad with building blocks.

The new report could be a hook for journalists to go into some pre-k's and kindergartens and see what kids are doing and asking teachers how they deal with playtime. Some might talk about the pressure to make their schools more academic. That would likely to be the case in Mobile, Alabama. Such a story could use the new report as a hook. The report is called "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds" and can be found here.

Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty has a terrific overview of the early childhood policies that research has found to be most effective in narrowing the achievement gap between poor children and their more affluent peers. One crucial element, the center's report says, is what it calls an "intentional curriculum."

The report defines this as a curriculum that is:

content driven, research-based, emphasizes active engagement with children, includes attention to social and regulatory skills, and is responsive to cultural diversity and children just learning English. An intentional curriculum is directive without using drill and kill strategies; it is fun for young children and promotes positive peer and teacher interactions. An intentional curriculum is developmentally appropriate.

Whole report gives a very concise helpful overview of the research on this crucial question. Good one-stop shopping for the press.

New research into the lives of children seems to debunk the widely held idea that parents are harming their children by pressuring them to participate in too many activities. A trio of researchers from Yale, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas found that, in fact, children benefit academically, socially, and developmentally from participating in activities. Joseph L. Mahoney of Yale says we should worry less about the 60 percent of children who participate in activities and more time worrying about the 40 percent of children who do not.
Study can be found here.

Seems to me, this would make a good weekend, Lifestyle section story that goes against the grain of common wisdom. Those highly pressured, stressed out kids who just want to kick back? Actually, they like being busy. (Someday we might see a study that finds that learning doesn't stress young children out either!)

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe wants to spend $40 million more on state pre-school programs and he's looking to a study from the National Institute for Early Education Research to bolster his case. NIEER, which judges the Arkansas Better Chance pre-school program to be a good one, concluded that the program had helped the poor children it serves to make significant gains in vocabulary, math, and what's called "print awareness." In the past, the Arkansas program was funded largely with a 3 cent tax on beer. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee had said that tax had to continue to keep the program going or expand it. Beebe hasn't yet said whether he'll continue to tap the wallets of beer drinkers to give more kids a good start on their educations. By the way, the Committee for Economic Development has a helpful overview of how programs are financed here.

The Record of Bergen County in New Jersey, my home newspaper, has made an extraordinary commitment to education coverage over the past several months. Education stories appear in the paper EVERY DAY, almost always on the front page on Sundays. Today's story is the best takeout I've yet seen on full-day kindergarten. It gives the local picture, the national context, a look at what goes on inside classrooms that's different, and even some research perspective. I know the reporters on the education beat and their editor, Susan DeSantis, are working very hard and feeling exhausted, but their hard work is paying off. The Hechinger Institute has invited Susan to talk about their big education push at a seminar for education editors in San Diego in early March.

This past Sunday the Record had a frontpager on full-day kindergarten. Today the editorial page followed up, arguing the state should make full-day kindergarten universally available. Right now, districts can offer it but the state does not cover the cost.

Education officials in Trenton need to make universal, full-day kindergarten a priority. Kindergarten used to serve as the transition year between home and school. Children would attend for about three hours a day. They would learn to play in groups. They would memorize the alphabet and practice pre-reading skills. These days, that happens in preschool.

Down in Tennessee, on a blog called TennesseeTicket, there is this nice description of children and learning and the role of society:

Children at this young age do not see learning as a “required” activity. They just do it. All one needs to do is provide access to the materials and information, and they set about having fun soaking up the knowledge. It is for this reason that pre-K learning should be seriously considered as a common goal. Yes, there is a strong argument that the primary responsibility of a child’s education lies with the child’s parent(s), but that stance could be (and is) used to argue against public education in general. If we accept that the society, through its state, has an interest in a well-educated populace, then our provisions wisely include measures to address this motherlode of time-sensitive learning capacity.

Bridget Gutierrez, who is writing the Get Schooled blog on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website, noted that although kindergarten is offered in public school systems all around Atlanta and the state provides free pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds, a third of children get to first grade without having attended either one. Gutierrez was commenting on legislative proposal to lower age of mandatory education to five.

The Get Schooled blog gets lots and lots of traffic. This entry had 64 comments. Many along the lines of "the government is taking away our children" or "destroying families" and lots of use of the word "indoctrination." Somehow I suspect that those who worry about such things are not exactly spending a lot of time talking to their kids, nurturing them, playing with them.

Edward F. Zigler has been a leading national authority on child development and early learning for more than four decades. He was part of a small group of advisers who created Head Start and then became its first director. Today, as growing numbers of policymakers embrace pre-kindergarten as an important source of education opportunity, Zigler, an active scholar and prolific author at 77, continues to play a central role in shaping the nation's thinking on early learning. When I spoke to him recently for a Q&A that is posted on the Web site of Education Sector he decried the poor quality of much of the child care in this country, gave a strong endorsement for Head Start, argued that pre-kindergarten ought to be universal, offered in regular public schools, and start at age 3.

Showing that he's stilling willing to court controversy, he said that, "The catastrophe for kids, the catastrophe for families, is the big split between child care and education. Education is looked as the state's responsibility. Child care is thought of as a family's responsibility. But we wind up with the kids in our schools. We don't know how to change. The Right Wing will fight anything that makes the lives of mothers and children better."

You can read the entire interview here Download file

I’ve been holding off on commenting on last week’s NY Times’ frontpager that conflated controversies over the implementation of the federal Reading First law with attempts to stoke the flames of the mostly settled “reading wars.” But I’ve kept my powder dry long enough. Alexander Russo, who blogs at “This Week in Education” on the Education Week site, is thrilled that the story made it into the Times because he sees it as vindication that this is the “BIG STORY” he thought it was all along. Russo, who though he lives here in New York sees himself as an inside-the-beltway mover and shaker, got all het up about what he considered to be a big, hot, dripping scandal involving politicians and bureaucrats in a whirlwind of audits, investigations, hearings, and conflicts of interest. That is a story. It’s just not an education story. Whatever the outcome of all of that activity, the central issue is not what’s the science and pedagogy of early reading. The central issue is actually federalism and education and the limits of policy issued from Washington D.C. That’s a topic for a wonkapalooza at a fancy Washington, D.C. hotel or the American Enterprise Institute. And Mike Petrilli over at the Fordham Foundation entered into that discussion just yesterday with this post. But it’s not really something that most parents of children learning to read care too much about.

The New York Times story was set in Madison, Wisconsin, which has long been known in education circles as a redoubt for the true believers in whole language. Whole language emphasizes to students the value of context and intuition in learning to read. So, the story opens with a kid who encounters the word “pea” and reads it as "pumpkin."

By the way, Sharon L. Ramey, the Georgetown University professor who was one of the authors of the child care study, and her husband, Craig T. Ramey, have produced a wealth of research on early childcare education that journalists should consult. Here's one article that is a great, readable summary of a lot of research.

Here is a list of what the Rameys call: Essential Experiences in Early Learning Years:

What are the crucial experiences needed in the early years of life? Does early caretaking or experience really affect brain development? Are these effects important or lasting? In recent scientific articles and books for parents, we have summarized a vast body of scientific evidence in terms of seven types of experiences that are essential to ensure normal brain and behavioral development and school readiness:

1. Encourage exploration.
2. Mentor in basic skills.
3. Celebrate developmental advances.
4. Rehearse and extend new skills.
5. Protect from inappropriate disapproval, teasing, and punishment.
6. Communicate richly and responsively.
7. Guide and limit behavior.

Oh, it's so painful for me to realize, now that I'm middle-aged, how much I missed as a child. Just think how much I could have accomplished, how much happier I'd be, had I been as lucky as 3-year-old Elliott Baines of Guttenberg, N.J. Alexander Russo linked the other day to a story in the Wall Street Journal that reported on the adventurous travel vacations families are taking their young children on to give them enriching experiences. Little Elliott, for example, "has already cleared customs in Israel, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, France and Canada. His parents...say they believe the experiences are shaping Elliot's personality even at this early age. For instance, when Elliot and a group of children were pretending to fly in their gymnastics class, other youngsters said they were going to Florida, while Elliot said he was en route to Paris." All my family ever did was drive one time from Ohio to the East Coast to visit family friends, and we weren't even allowed to stop at the Mystery Spot along the way.

But, seriously, articles such as these are what I like to call "rich porn" and are a staple of the Journal, the Times, Vanity Fair, and other publications aimed at the elite. Those of us who spent our childhood catching tadpoles and playing baseball with kids in the neighborhood instead of flying off to Thailand to ride bikes through the jungle love to be voyeurs observing the lives of people with so much money it skews their judgment of what's important. A little skepticism about whether such trips actually put kids ahead of their peers, and a little context as to how few families actually take such vacations would be nice. But that would make such stories far less entertaining.

Barbara Kantrowitz of Newsweek explored the overselling of baby technology in an article in the April 23rd edition.Here's her lede:

You see them everywhere: harried parents hauling their little ones off to classes in Mandarin, gymnastics or classical violin. At home, they're filling nurseries with "educational" rattles and mobiles. It's all for a worthy goal: making the most of the first three years of life, when critical changes in brain structure determine whether little Madison or Matthew will one day enter the Ivy League. At least that is what a growing number of parents have been led to believe. Sadly, it may all be a waste of time and money.

Newsweek also has an audio chat with Sara Mead on the topic.

Brainy Baby® does acknowledge some of the issues on its web site. The company says its "products always work best when adults use them interactively with their child. When using a DVD, for example, watch it with your child, talk about what you see, and repeat the names of new things, just as you do when reading a book together. Interaction between parent and child is a key ingredient to getting the most out of our Brainy Baby® products.

'The story Tracy Jan published in the Boston Globe about a month ago on the frank and disturbing study of preschools and kindergartens in the city got a lot of attention, as it should have. I've been waiting to find a copy of the full report to link to but so far haven't. I'll keep looking.

According to Jan's story, which was followed up by a hardhitting editorial, the study by the Wellesley Centers for Women found "mediocre instruction, unsanitary classrooms, and dangerous schoolyards." The study also found that the quality of about 70% of the classrooms were not good enough to achieve the goal of closing gaps in kindergarten readiness between white and Asian children and Latino and African-American children.

A couple points from the Globe story to emphasize: The teachers in the classrooms studied all had bachelor's degrees but a fifth of them didn't necessarily have degrees in early childhood education. One school of thought in early childhood education insists on college degrees as a measure of quality. An alternative view is that teachers in preschools need to be highly skilled. It sounds like the same point but it's not. If preschool teachers can gain critical skills and knowledge of how young children learn and how best to help them learn in community college or in a special training program, then what's the purpose of insisting on a bachelor's degree? It's heartbreaking but the researchers found that many of these kids were sitting in their seats in kindergarten and preschool, being lectured to and responding to flash cards. No wonder these preschools aren't helping much.

Another point to emphasize comes from Elizabeth Reilinger, a member of the Boston Schools Committee. She commented that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had pushed to expand preschool too quickly. Is this a problem around the country? Is the pressure so great to expand pre-k spending as quickly as possible causing the creation of poorly funded, poor quality programs that are accomplishing little?

One other observation. Yes, these were the conclusions of researchers. But couldn't journalists have made some of these same observations by visiting a lot of classrooms? A journalist who knew a little bit about how young chldren learn would have noticed that kids were sitting still too long and doing worksheets instead of engaging in purposeful, creative activities that involved a lot of conversation, right? I hope so.

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."

I was struck this past weekend by the number of television ads for toys aimed toddlers. Christmas selling and buying season starts right after Halloween. The ads caught my ear because they were talking about how babies develop skills with the right toys.

A couple of days ago I Googled eBeanstalk, the company whose ads for toys for infants I'd seen over the weekend. The philosophy of the company seems to be "teaching" begins at birth and that every interaction between a parent and a child requires a "lesson plan" and goal that can be measured. For example, the site sells socks for newborns with rattles " attached. The rattles "give him a first taste of cause and effect" because when he kicks his feet the baby will hear the sound. The socks will also spur emotional development and dexterity--all for only $10. What tutor charges so little?

Or, take the colorful child-safe mirror toys. (Basic: $18.95. Premium: $44.95. For those who REALLY love their children): These toys develop neck control, teach him that things disappear and reappear, aid in self-recognition and allow the baby to play peek-a-boo. Generations of babies have grown up without these "skills," apparently, because they lacked such devices. Helpfully, the site provides instructions for how parents can play with these toys. It turns out that playing "peek-a-boo" requires special training--for parents as well as babies. After a few lessons, babies will be able to play "peek-a-boo" with themselves, relieving parents of that chore after a long, hard day at the office.

Gender differentiation starts early. A package of bath toys--a pirate ship and shaving kit for the boys! Pink Tub Fashion and Princess in the Tub sets for girls!--can be had for $75 apiece. Perfect for 1 to 3 year olds. Spurs imagination, they're educational, and improve dexterity. (I hope parents don't leave their baby in the tub to work on their homework on their own.) Even Baby Einstein, a Disney company that sells toys and gear to make kids smarter, doesn't go as far as eBeanstalk in its educational claims.

The Wall Street Journal on November 1 carried a story about Eee PC, a computer aimed at first graders. It's just one of several companies selling computers to parents anxious to give their kids a head start on the technology of the future. (By the time they reach high school, of course, PCs will be the "technology of the past.") An Oklahoma company called Digital Dimensions sells a pink PC for girls and a red, blue, or black racecar PC for boys, both equipped with software for children as young as 2.

Journalists have written quite a bit about the phenomena of affluent parents willing to do just about anything to give their kids an edge. Cloaking consumerism in pseudo-science that makes natural development seem to depend on the right toys--rather than just loving, talking to, reading to, and playing with your children--helps fuel this unfortunate parental instinct. This impulse among some parents creates business opportunities and it's no surprise companies are out there capitalizing on them. Sometimes the universal pre-kindergarten movement overemphasizes education, as well, causing opponents to complain that schooling is more important than just fostering normal, healthy development. These issues are worth more critical attention, I think.

An editorial in the New York Times over the weekend commented ironically on "guides" that purport to teach kids the "basic skills" of childhood. With just the right note of sarcasm, the editorial suggested that such books (and, I would add, toys) make natural development seem like a take-home test.

“Lying on your back in your crib, point your knees outward and draw your heels toward your stomach. Using both hands, grasp your left ankle, if you are right-handed (or right ankle, if left-handed), and slowly draw your toes into your mouth. Chew with caution!”