ECE

About a week ago my discussion group got on a topic about early childhood education. Many different viewpoints were brought into the converstation which made for a great discussion. We hit issues on different areas of Early Childhood Education but the hot topic was if preschool should be mandated for all children. Most recently in my education at Luther I've learned a great deal about the benefits to Early Childhood education. The intellectual development before the age of 5 is extrodinary. The group seemed to agree, or at least somewhat, on how the development during this time is crucial. The children should be educated during this time period. Should this be left up the parents? Should preschools be offered but not mandated? Should all children be required to attend preschool?

In a perfect world, it would be great to have all parents able to stay home with their children and teach them values, social concepts (like sharing, interacting with others), etc. However, now and especially with the economy, both parents are needing to work to provide for the family. This indicates that children are kept with other caregivers during many of their waking hours. Are these caregivers giving the necessary help and guidance to the children? How should we ensure that this is possible?

Also, how are preschools to be funded? An interesting comment was made that the funding for early childhood should go to grades K-12 to better that education through resources or other areas. During the discussion I thought this was a response that many people in the United States could argue and it appears valid when many schools are "failing" at those levels.

So....I decided to turn to my early childhood education professor for a quick answer. She stated, "The K-12 schools aren't funded by the government; they are funded by the state property taxes. If the federal government were to divert this money to the states, how would it be done equitably--poor states get more, everybody gets the same?" She also mentioned the thought that we need to compare the budgets of early childhood programs that are government funded (only one is Head Start) and compare it to other government funds. Where is the money (the attention) going to? Where does education come on this scale?