"Why aren't you in school?" the third stranger in a week asked my daughter today. My daughter is only three, and though it's true that we home school her, she is still two years shy of the compulsory school age. But I have stopped being surprised by the question, because the playgrounds where we spend our mornings are dominated by babies and toddlers. It is true that most children my daughter's age are either in a fancy preschool (the upper and upper-middle class kids) or a not-so-fancy daycare (the working class kids).
If preschool is truly as ubiquitous as this, why doesn't the federal government fund it for every child, as it does K-12 education? Clearly, as Judith Warner has argued families need preschool.
A study reported in USA Today this summer found that where public preschool exists, it is working: "The researchers found that as the kids entered kindergarten those enrolled in the state program had better reading, math and writing skills than kids who were either not enrolled in preschool or who spent time in the federally funded Head Start program."
Yet these schools are far from ubiquitous. A 2007 study funded by Pew Charitable Trusts found that most three and four year olds are denied a chance to attend a public preschool. Though Head Start (which, remember, has been found less effective than public preschool) is available for poor families on an income-test basis, and expensive private preschools are full of upper-middle class children, working and lower middle class children are missing out.
If my children and their children are going to be asked to pay the interest on a $700 billion bailout for today's ruined bank executives, don't we owe them the best possible opportunities for a good education, or at the very least, a safe place to play while we work to put up the down payment?
