NYTimes | The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers
Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.
Kindergarten students who learn more don’t necessarily come from more teachers. They emerge from the classrooms of good teachers, who treat kindergarten in as respectful a manner as they would teaching at the high school or college level. Too often have I witnessed the (unfortunately female) rejects of college degree programs relegated by their advisors to the given university’s school of education. “Cs and Ds in science. You can’t continue here, how about science education or just education in general?” How horrible.
I am also reminded of elementary school music and art programs that are invariably dropped at the first whiff of budget cuts. What does a school board do with the sudden teacher surplus? Send them to teach reading comprehension at the kindergarten and pre-K levels, of course.
What can parents do at home to overcome the government-mandated babysitting that is the average kindergarten program? How do they impart the success factors mentioned here, i.e. “patience, discipline, manners, perseverance” while working three jobs to keep food on the plate and in the absence of a supportive kindergarten atmosphere? Can these values and attendant lessons be imparted at home in the absence of social peers?
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Side note: It’s interesting what society uses as indicators of success (versus true achievement and happiness). I know several successful, self-disciplined people who never attended college, have kids out of wedlock and live paycheck to substantial paycheck. Not that college, married parents and making enough money to save for retirement are bad things; they do indicate a sense of self-assuredness and stability. And this was research conducted by economists, after all.
maitri