Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Early Childhood Education

The Fight Against "Bubble-Wrapped" Kids

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:54:00 EDT

Milwaukee radio host Charles Sykes is taking on the trend of "bubble-wrapped" kids in his new book, 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School. My personal favorite is rule number nine: "Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't." Skyes explains:

The modern ‘bubble wrap' mentality assumes that children are so frail and easily bruised that they have to be insulated...from life. No losing, no disappointments, no harsh reality checks. But like a child who grows up in a bubble without immunities to the outsides world, a child raised in bubble wrap is not prepared for the symptoms of life: failure, frustration, and having to make choices tougher than the color of their new iPod sleeve.

And if you think that's over exaggerating, I dare you to start up a game of dodgeball, tag, or even Legos at an elementary school nowadays. Come to think of it, I don't even know if you're allowed to dare anyone anymore.

PBS' To the Contrary: Gun control and the 2008 elections; Educational baby toys; Don Imus' return

info@iwf.org (Michelle D. Bernard) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:38:00 EDT

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The Communal Pencil: What Do the New Rules About School Supplies Say About Us?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:42:00 EDT

Charlotte's Web

At a time when some schools are failing to teach even the bare essentials of reading and math, a new problem is rearing its ugly head: commissar-style management of school supplies.

Comrade Parent, do not expect to take your kids shopping for their own school supplies this year. It was a pleasant fall ritual while it lasted, but now parents are likely to be presented with a list, some of it quite specific, of supplies.

A statement at the bottom will inform you that said purchases are not for your own little scholar but rather will be pooled for the use of the entire class.

While it is to be hoped that well-to-do parents won't be churlish about this mandatory sharing, it must be noted that charity must be voluntary if it is to have any moral meaning whatsoever. This goes for the receiver as well as for the giver. Nobody really wants to take what is not freely given-unless this healthy, natural reservation is bred out of them by programs such as this one.

There are so many things wrong with this idea. If it is designed to spare embarrassment for children from low-income households, it won't. In the tooth and claw world of young children, you can rest assured that no one will be fooled. Kids will know whose parents bought supplies and whose didn't; the elaborate scheme to conceal this information can only serve to convince kids that there is something inherently shameful in being poor.

Instead of being expected to hold your head up high, poorer kids are told that they own what other kids' parents supply. Or maybe it's the haves who are being shamed-your pencils and glue must be confiscated because you shouldn't have them. It is very unlikely that communal school supplies will encourage kids-rich or poor alike-to take good care of these expensive supplies. "For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it," Aristotle, that great teacher, once noted. If you think class supplies are inadequate now-just you wait!

Some of the lists provided for parents are agonizingly detailed. An article in the Dayton, Ohio Daily News, for example, reported on one that stipulated "Fiskars-brand scissors (5-inch size, sharp), Clorox-brand clean-up wipes, two Dry Erase-brand black markers with wide tips, 36 No. 2 pencils, yellow only." One teacher specified that only crayons made in the USA were acceptable. "I'm all for buying stuff that's made in America," a conscientious mother was quoted saying, "but I had to go to three stores to find them!"

Apparently, the teacher figured it's never too early for a lesson in protectionism! If I had a child in school, I might prefer that she diagram sentences rather than absorb the teacher's seemingly innocent but somewhat misguided management techniques. This whole business reeks of being a well-intended attempt to instill values, but at what cost?

One value I'd like kids to embrace is caring for their property. Ironically, it may well be the case that if school administrators were more adept at balancing their own budgets they might not need this form of parental largesse.

To go back to ancient history, only slightly later than Aristotle, I recall that my public elementary school provided a lot of the supplies that are on these want-lists, while we kids bought our own satchels and other implements that screamed our individual identities. (What were those pencil nerds thinking with their plastic pocket penholders?) We have become accustomed to thinking of schools as being in dire financial straits, but it's becoming more and more apparent that many school districts in their efforts to meet competing priorities use their funds unwisely. Should parents be required to rescue them?

For me, though, the real issue is what the communal pencil says about the values our educators-and to a greater extent we as a society-seek to instill. Among these values is the idea that financial inequality is destructive. It isn't. I'll never forget a great moment in my own high school, a private girls school, that showed just how un-destructive it can be.

There were quite a few girls whose families were well to do, a category that did not include my friend Jane or me. One night we were coming back from a movie in the school bus, and everybody started talking about what they were getting as a graduation present. You know, cars and trips to Europe.

"What are you getting?" Jane was asked. "This education," she said. It was the right answer-and it was a proud one. If the school had forced us to pool our graduation presents, Jane and I would not have learned something important. Along with reading and math, kids need a chance to learn that we don't all start out in life with material advantages-and then learn that this is not what defines us.

Leave No Lousy Teacher Behind!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:52:00 EST

That should be the motto of the teachers union. Inability to fire lousy teachers and reward good ones are two of the biggest problems in public education (there are other big problems, of course). Daniel Henninger writes today about a program in Little Rock, Ark., that rewards teachers who produce good results. Needless to say, the union is not pleased. But a study by Gary Ritter shows that the program works:

"The Ritter study also summarized the expansion and refinement of the incentive program since its inception. At Wakefield (and the three newest schools), the bonuses are awarded for the average growth in test scores of each teacher's class, rather than per-student achievement as at Meadowcliff. At the fall start of Wakefield's first year in the program, its students tested in the 16th percentile; at year's end they were in the 29th percentile. Its teachers got $228,300 in bonuses. Meadowcliff's second-year bonuses totaled $200,926.

"For consistency, the study looked at results on a standardized math test given at Wakefield School the past three years to each student, ending in the fourth and fifth grades. The school's teachers were covered by the bonus program last year. The students' math grades improved by a standard measure (called NCE) of 3.5 points, while those in three Little Rock comparison schools declined. That 3.5 point gain equals about one-sixth of the normally cited national average gap in math scores between black students and white students. If compounded for six years, the gap would close.

"Too hopeful?

"It seems to be for the Little Rock teachers' union. A man versed in the downward slope of many such good intentions warned me last year to watch for the counteroffensive from either Little Rock's bureaucrats or its teachers' union. The union has made its move. In last fall's school-board election, the union ran a slate of candidates and gained control of four of the board's seven seats. It hopes to capture one more school-board seat this September. By June, however, Little Rock will have five grade schools inside the merit-bonus program. If standardized test scores rise in these three new schools as well, it would take a special brand of community self-destruction to throw out the bonus program at the union's behest."

Another Ridiculous Application of Title IX

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:06:00 EST

Apparently killing off men's sports team isn't enough. The Department of Education now wants to use Title IX to torture cheerleaders.

The Associated Press reports: "The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has concluded that school districts violated the law by having cheerleaders only at boys' basketball, baseball and softball games, and not at girls' games... The superintendent of the Vestal Central School District... says from now on, cheerleaders will be required to perform at an equal number of girls' and boys' games." (hat tip: James Taranto's Best of the Web)

I was a cheerleader in high school (I'm braced for any insults anyone wants to offer) and I can tell you that I would not have looked forward to cheering at a girl's field hockey or tennis match. I also competed in high school gymnastics and would have thought it was ridiculous for cheerleaders to show up at one of our sparsely attended meets. Many programs around the country struggle to attract enough cheerleaders - and this is a surefire way to make sure that there are no cheerleaders anywhere. The main point of being a cheerleader is entertaining a crowd -- that's why you typically find cheerleaders at football and basketball games, but not at men's track meets or wrestling matches.

It's interesting that the Title IX enforcers have taken such an interest in cheerleading, which they don't consider a sport itself. In tallying up how many men and women participate in sports, cheerleaders don't count as athletes. Now I am not trying to pretend that the kind of cheerleading that I did in high school was serious athletics, but at many colleges cheerleading is much more than just appearing at football games. Cheerleaders have their own competitions and are definitely true athletes.

Of course, the bottom line is that it makes no sense for bureaucrats to go through this ridiculous exercise of counting up athletes and making determinations such as, yes, golf counts as a sport but, no, cheerleading doesn't, or trying to force cheerleaders to attend events where there are no spectators to encourage to cheer. It's time to reform this antiquated quota system and let student athletes focus on whatever sport or activity they choose.

Governor Teaches a Preschool Lesson

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EDT

National Review Online

Politicians all talk about "fiscal responsibility," but few put that principle into action-- particularly when faced with a call for a politically attractive program. Governor Mitt Romney (R., Mass.) deserves applause for doing just that by vetoing a bill last week that promised to provide universal preschool to Bay State toddlers.

Massachusetts is the latest state to consider expanding government-provided education to the juice-box set. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D.) is trying to fulfill his campaign promise to give all parents the option of enrolling their children for a year of school before kindergarten. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich supports subsidizing preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. Georgia and Oklahoma already offer all four-year-olds pre-K. Earlier this year, California voters considered (and rejected) a ballot initiative to provide preschool to all California four-year-olds.

Despite the proposition's failure in California, it's easy to see why many politicians view universal preschool as a political winner. Voters picture smiling four-year-olds clasping lunchboxes, heading off to bright colored classrooms to begin a life-time of learning. Presumably, the extra year of school will give these children a leg up, and clever budget-crunchers promise that early-learning investments will pay future dividends of higher tax payments and reduced spending on social programs. An added bonus: Over-stressed working moms have one less year to worry about finding daycare.

But universal preschool doesn't live up to its promise, either as a matter of policy or of politics. While proponents boast of preschool as having a dramatic affect on student outcomes, there is scant evidence to support this claim. Darcy Olsen, president of the Goldwater Institute, reviewed the major studies on preschool's effects and found no evidence that preschool helps mainstream (neither low-income or learning-disabled) children learn more. Moreover, some studies have shown that preschool-- even as little as three hours a day or fifteen hours per week-- can actually impede these children's social development.

Some children, particularly disadvantaged children, have been found to enjoy some benefits from intensive, high-quality preschool. But preschool's positive effects are short-lived. For example, a study conducted by University of California Santa Barbara researchers found that the academic gains made by children in preschool vanished by third grade.

Ineffectiveness isn't the only strike against government-provided preschool. Voters and politicians should also consider if government should be in the business of educating children as young as two. Anyone familiar with the K-12 school system's underwhelming results should question the logic of expanding government-run education. Each year in the public-school system, American children fall further behind their peers overseas. Fixing the existing public-school system seems like it should be a higher priority than giving them even more children to educate.

Government provision of preschool would also be another step in the creeping government takeover over what had been family's responsibilities. As Olsen writes: "At heart is the question of in whose hands the responsibility for young children should rest. On that question, plans to entrench the state further into early education cannot be squared with a free society that cherishes the primacy of the family over the state."

Parents agree, which is why initiatives to expand government's role in preschool and childcare often fail. Parents are not clamoring for government-provide preschool or daycare programs. In fact, most parents believe that children are better off spending more time at home with parents than in organized daycare facilities.

Universal preschool is not the way to help parents realize that goal. These programs are expensive. Without Gov. Romney's veto, Massachusetts taxpayers would have faced a billion-dollar-per-year price tag. Virginia's program would cost $300 million annually. Families would see their tax burden rising, making it more difficult to make ends meet on just one salary.

Policymakers should join Governor Romney in opposing universal preschool. It may sound like a political winner, but when government expands, we all lose.