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Illinois School Board Journal
January/February 2004

Sorting out universal access to preschools

by Ginger Wheeler

Ginger Wheeler is a free-lance writer from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, whose work has appeared in national magazines, local newspapers and on the World Wide Web.

Few topics fire up emotions as quickly as the subject of children and their education. Things get especially heated when the debate is about young children, ages 3-4, and preschool education - the publicly funded kind.

Congress got into the fray last summer with an attempt to change the federally funded Head Start, a 40-year-old program for disadvantaged children. With battle lines drawn on the low-income program, early childhood education supporters have turned to the subject of universal access to preschool for all children, a key component of Rod Blagojevich's gubernatorial campaign and a top priority of his administration.

But how do we sort out access questions like: Who pays? Who benefits? Who decides?

Preschool has become a norm for middle and upper class children. Advances in research on how the brain develops, as well as how early experiences shape a person's entire life, continue to reinforce the idea that preschool raises success levels for children as they enter kindergarten.

But not every child has the opportunity to attend a quality preschool. That would take money, transportation and trained teachers.

According to state birth records, Illinois is currently home to 360,000 3- and 4-year-olds. And when conversations turn to providing preschool for all of those children, eyebrows raise among policymakers and legislators for a myriad of reasons, ranging from costs to ideological beliefs that young children ought to be at home with mom.

So where do schools draw the line with respect to compulsory attendance? Before the compulsory age of 7 and after age 16, people legally have the freedom to choose whether or not to attend school. Schools must offer kindergarten and first grade, but parents are not required to send their kids until age 7, said Kay Henderson, division administrator for the Illinois State Board of Education's early childhood education program.

But this wasn't always the case.

Looking back at access

Today's public education system has its roots in the late 1860s, after the end of the American Civil War. While public schools were more common in the northern states, not a single state in the Confederacy offered free public education prior to the Civil War, said George E. Hopkins, a history professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb.

"One of the great post-Civil War reforms was free public education that was universalized," he said.

Progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson all favored universal access to a free public education. Before these men each became president between 1901 and 1920, public education was offered - spottily - so that people could learn to read the Bible, Hopkins said.

During that time, it was common for children to be laborers - working in factories, coal mines and other dangerous settings - competing with adults for jobs and depressing wages, he said.

"Two serious attempts to amend the Constitution to prohibit child labor failed by the 1920s," Hopkins said. Progressives got around the issue by requiring that all children attend school. But even then, only five or six years of schooling were required. Many had to pay tuition for high school. All had to pay for books. As a result, a sixth-grade education was the norm.

Since then, school has become a right for children, Hopkins said. School is commonly accepted as the great equalizer in the competitive game of life - an idea first brought to life by those turn-of-the-century progressives.

But schools themselves were not equal. Schools for black children and the poor were seriously under-funded. Private schools for the elite continued to provide more and better programs for those who could pay.

When the federal government mandated in 1954 that all schools in a district had to be funded equally, whites fled to suburbs, creating more inequities in major cities such as Chicago.

Today, upper and middle class 3- and 4-year-olds continue to get a jumpstart on the disadvantaged in the same age group by attending private preschool. Even wealthy children who are not in preschools usually enjoy rich experiences that cause them to develop better, stronger vocabularies than a poor child might have by age 3.

While nobody is talking about mandating that young children attend preschool, many want preschool to be available to anyone who would like for their children to attend, regardless of ability to pay.

Head Start beginnings

The 1960s civil rights movement and Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" led to the creation of Head Start in 1964. Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income children, is widely regarded as one of the most successful federal social programs in history. Since its inception, Head Start has served more than 21 million poor children with preschool education, as well as health, dental and parent education programs.

But Head Start is under attack by the Bush Administration, according to program proponents. By one vote, the House of Representatives passed HB1210 in July. The bill would have transferred federal funding of Head Start from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the states through block grants. However, a measure that would have retained federal authority for funding stalled in the U.S. Senate, leaving federal funding mechanisms in place for now.

Although Head Start always has been subject to changes by every president since Johnson, Head Start advocates say last summer's action would have signaled the dismantling of Head Start as a federal program and jeopardized its future existence.

"(Programs) to help people that are poor are being scrutinized, cut, changed, watered down," said Marge Stillwell, executive director of Illinois' Head Start.

At one point in the voting last summer, a letter from a Health and Human Services official warned Head Start workers not to lobby for their cause or they might face criminal or civil penalties, according to an article in the Christian Science Monitor. The action evoked a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court against the Bush Administration.

The battle over Head Start funding closely mirrors the debate surrounding universal access to preschool, also called pre-kindergarten (preK) in Illinois.

"Universal pre-kindergarten is something that we should pursue as a goal of the state of Illinois," said State Senator Miguel del Valle, Democrat, Second District, who chairs the Illinois Senate committee on education. "But it's going to require money. We don't have money."

Current patchwork

Illinois' current pre-kindergarten program is a patchwork of private, state and federally subsidized programs. Preschoolers who are cared for outside the home can end up in private preschools with tuitions that exceed some colleges, or in daycare centers, or in the care of family or private homes.

Low-income preschoolers might be in a quality program through Head Start or in one of Illinois' highly regarded state pre-kindergarten at-risk programs administered by local school districts and funded by state grants. Or, they may live in an area not served by either program.

ISBE's Henderson said Illinois' current system is a model for other states in quality of teachers and curriculum. The state is in the process of forming an early learning council, she said, although appointments to that council had not been announced by early December 2003.

Ellen Weisload, a parent educator who works through Glen Ellyn School District 41's pre-kindergarten at-risk program, said the families she works with are often transient. When a client is planning a move, Weisload said, she looks for a comparable program in the new location.

"The need is there, but the services are not. There are patches of places that don't have programs," she said. "When people move, I always check to see where they're going, and often they don't have the program or if they do, it's full."

Child advocate groups hope to change all that through universal access to preschool.

"What we're talking about is providing access to high quality learning environments wherever that child is," said Sean Noble, senior policy advisor for Illinois Voices for Children. "It's all about taking the different settings the parents want their kids to be in and making them better and more affordable."

In 2001, then-Illinois first lady Lura Lynn Ryan chaired a task force charged with developing a framework for providing universal access to quality preschool in Illinois. The components of those recommendations are still in the works, Noble said.

The Illinois General Assembly passed a bill last spring that creates an "Illinois Early Learning Council," which is in the process of formation now, said Noble. "There's a lot out there, and individually they do a good job. But helping these programs work together, we could do a much better job of helping young kids in Illinois and their families."

Preschool seems to work

Many studies have been conducted, and are often cited as reasons why preschool is either good for kids or makes no difference. One could say the evidence is inconclusive because the variables are too broad: income levels, parent/family structure, English proficiency, location. All these factors affect an outcome.

Plus, the concept of studying and testing children so young is up for grabs. One superintendent of an elementary district told parents that, all else being equal, a lawn mower outside a window was blamed for one classroom's poor test scores.

But early childhood learning advocates say study after study shows that preschool is good for children, providing lasting benefits to society.

Anecdotal information and common sense would seem to bolster that theory.

Maria*, 22, a Mexican-immigrant with three young children, heard about the local Head Start program in Harvard, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border.

Maria, who moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was 14, is bilingual, but her husband is not. Her 3-year-old son primarily speaks Spanish but is learning English at school. Maria found work as a teacher's aide, translating for students and English-speaking teachers as the children learn through playing, singing and working in groups.

Through her involvement in Head Start, Maria has discovered a love of teaching. She now dreams of becoming a teacher and is taking college classes toward realizing her dream.

Another parent at the Harvard program, Katerina*, speaks no English. She has a 3-year-old in the program, and an 8-year-old daughter who translates to help Katerina get along in American society. She said her daughter, who also attended the program, is doing well in school - academically, socially and emotionally. She credits Head Start for teaching her daughter English and giving her the boost she needed to do well in school.

Noble said that is exactly what preschool programs are supposed to do.

"Within the first few days of school, kindergarten teachers can point out the kids with early learning and the kids without," Noble said. "These are the kids who will struggle for years to catch up and sometimes might never be able to do so. It's sad for teachers to know this on the first day of school. This is far too early in life to be thinking this child is already struggling."

One of the things on which Head Start and other quality preschool programs pride themselves is parental involvement and educational programs for parents. Rhonda Nystrom, executive director at Harvard's Head Start program, said Head Start is more than preschool.

"We service the families," Nystrom said. "Each (Head Start counselor) works with families to set goals - whether it's getting a GED, or creating a network of babysitters."

This program also provides immunizations and dental care for the children and their families. "The families are receptive and thankful for our help," she said. "They know we have the resources."

What they don't know is that Head Start is vulnerable. And to compound the problem, many families who benefit from the program are not voting citizens, so they are helpless to take action to save it.

Maria and Katerina both have husbands who work in the northern Illinois landscape nursery business. But with incomes less than $24,000 per year, a private preschool would be out of the question. Yet, without a preschool program, their children would start kindergarten with a very low English proficiency, putting them at great risk for future failure.

While Illinois has pledged $90 million new dollars over three years toward existing preschool programs, like many other states, it may not have the money to continue Head Start at its current operational level. If House Bill 1210 had become law, even with federal block grants, the temptation to merge the program into existing state programs and cut services would loom large.

Many taxpayers don't see a big payoff for providing universal preschool to all children in Illinois. Ramona Clucas of Glen Ellyn doesn't see a big need. "My children didn't go to preschool. If I saw that people are better, nicer people (after preschool), I'd be all for it," she said. "But I don't see that."

That seems to be the thinking in many conservative circles. While everyone agrees that parents should be, and in most cases are, the best and first educators for children, the question is out there: When should children start a formal education?

It's a 150-year-old question. And, according to Henderson, it's a question that isn't going away.

"There are many, many people who are very committed to this and have been working toward it for a very long time," Henderson said, "and they're not getting tired. It’s something we'll be discussing for a pretty long time."

*Names have been changed to preserve privacy.

Starting brains out right

by Linda Dawson

Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.

During the first years of life, children learn at an astonishing rate. And while it once was believed that babies came into the world as "blank slates," doctors and scientists, using brain imagery, now recognize that children, from birth, are capable of complex ideas.

Infants are born with almost all the brain cells they will need for a lifetime of learning - at least 100 billion, according to Joshua Sparrow, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School who collaborates with noted child doctor T. Berry Brazelton on the Touchpoints model of child development.

Sparrow, who spoke to this year's Voices for Illinois Children Early Learning Conference, described how those brain cells have 50 trillion connections already made when a baby is born. In just one year, those connections multiply a staggering 20 times to 1,000 trillion, he said.

Those connections are learning taking place. In addition to learning to walk and talk, babies also are learning to interact with others in their environment. How well and much they learn depends, however, on experiences provided by adults.

"You can't educate children without having parents deeply involved," Sparrow told the Early Learning Conference. And that involvement means playing an active part in what he describes as the five building blocks of emotional development.

In addition to being born with all those brain cells, babies are born with the ability to register protest - by crying - in order to have their needs met. This is known as "state regulation." They keep themselves comfortable by crying to get attention if they are wet or hungry.

State regulation then turns into "mutual regulation" with adults. Sparrow compares this relationship to being a dance team like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, except learning for the child comes from the mistakes, not necessarily from being in sync with a parent.

"Parents need to understand that they may only be in matching states 30 percent of the time," Sparrow said. They may not always connect with the child, "but they need to keep trying."

When stressors like poverty, drugs or depression are introduced to the equation, he said, parents might not recognize that they're out of touch with a child.

The third building block is social referencing. At a young age, babies read faces, Sparrow said. If a mother is smiling and encouraging, the baby thinks everything is safe and okay. He used the example of a mother smiling while saying "no, no" to a toddler approaching danger on the stairs.

"If the parent doesn't want the child to go up the step, but still is smiling," he said, "this sends mixed messages. Parents need to know that what they say with their face matters most."

Sensory interactions are another emotional building block. Sparrow notes the differences between children "tasting" at 9 months and using toys for "play."

"We need to look at play as a way to learn," he said, "rather than cramming information like early ABCs."

The final building block is the theory of the mind, or the ability of children to think about thoughts.

In a video clip, Sparrow showed a 2 1/2-year-old boy playing with his mother with a toy alligator. When the mother was coached to ignore the child at a certain point, the youngster tried a number of different tactics to try to re-engage her in their play. He then began to believe that she was upset with him, because he had suggested the alligator might bite a baby.

This attempt by the child to figure out why the parent wouldn't interact results in the child assuming blame for something that has nothing to do with him, he said.

Whether these interactions are with parents or a daycare provider or a preschool, the bottom line is caregivers must be emotionally available for young children to learn. That means time for interaction and demands a lot from people who are routinely underpaid, he said.