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.

Howard Blume has a good, sophisticated piece in the Los Angeles Times that profiles an elementary school in Compton that seems to be making it. Compton is thought of in California as a stereotypical, struggling, minority community, with all that connotes. But Bunche Elementary School has test scores on par with those in Beverly Hills, Blume reports. And he gives us some snippets of demanding lessons, illustrating the school's expectations. (Though I'd like to have gotten some sense of how teachers are actually teaching. Conversation? Lecturing? How do they help students acquire learning behaviors?)

Such celebratory pieces often are unquestioning. Blume notes that it's a bit difficult to judge the school's gains, because its early success has attracted successful students from elsewhere. (I don't think this is a problem at all. A bigger group of successful students gives less engaged and accomplished students role models and changes the school culture. But it muddies year-to-year comparisons.) He also acknowledges that the highly structured program and strict discipline at the school may not fly in middle class schools. He reports that Bunche still suffers from high turnover among the young, bright Teach for America teachers it hires. Still, one gets the sense that the high expectations at the school make a big difference.

Bruce Fuller, the author of "Standardized Childhood" just out from Stanford University Press offers this measured and thoughtful response to my entry a few days ago about his book:

I’m miffed by friend Richard Colvin’s instantaneous commentary on my new book, Standardized Childhood, just out from Stanford University Press, coauthored with Margaret Bridges and Seeta Pai. Richard ends his blog-spray by admitting, “I confess I haven’t read the book.” [Disclosure: the rules of evidence or substantiation in the blog world remain a mystery to me.]

The book offers readers a concise historical tour, illuminating the age-old debate around how elites and institutions eagerly push to define the inner nature and proper upbringing of other people’s children. Sure, it takes a village. But the pivotal question moving forward is, who gets to call the shots across America’s diverse villages, and what are the ethics and evidence on the proposition that what’s best is a more homogenous way of raising and instructing young children are best?

Earlier feminist and child care movements stressed options for parents and children. But now influential born-again preschool advocates [disclosure: who are financially supported by the same national foundation that pays for Colvin’s blog site] have converged on a singular remedy: free preschool, preferably attached to public school bureaucracies, for all families, no matter how rich or poor.

Journalists, local activists, and state policy makers – as this movement unfolds – must wrestle with key issues. First, in the context of No Child Left Behind many kindergarten teachers are under enormous pressure to drill-and-kill information into children’s heads, to pump-up their test scores. The book takes readers into several preschool classrooms where teachers now feel the same pressure. So, let’s get clear on the risks and potential benefits of attaching three and four year-olds to public schools in the present environment of top-down accountability.