It never ceases to amaze how many supposedly intelligent people continually complain about the lack of adequate pre-kindergarten education. Just recently a local physician weighed in with such a pronouncement in an opinion column in the Post-Gazette. What is wrong with the argument? Consider this. How did the U.S. become the world’s foremost economy and military power during a period when very few people went to public pre-school-there weren’t any such schools-and many citizens never went to kindergarten?
Children who are raised in a loving, caring environment where they are encouraged at home to learn as they grow do not need pre-school. It is all well and good if parents want to send their children to private or church run pre-schools but those schools are certainly neither necessary nor sufficient for intellectual or emotional development.
Then too, what we know to be an incontrovertible fact is that the longer kids are in most urban public schools, including Pittsburgh, the worse their academic and intellectual development becomes. They tend to do relatively well in first through third, maybe okay through fifth grade, then their development slows dramatically. If they start out in first grade doing reasonably well with some hope they can move along satisfactorily and then stumble as they get older, obviously it is not the presence or absence of pre-school that is important. It is the failed school system and a lack of parental guidance and discipline that carries over into the schools that creates the problem.
If the good doctor wants to see kids get a better education, then he should support vouchers that would enable students to escape the failed public schools. Whining about the lack of spending on public pre-schools is simply an effort to excuse the school system for its shortcomings by claiming things would be better if pre-schools were funded and required for all three and four year olds. In some places that is known as cynical foolishness.
