by Jeannine Johnson

Created on: April 23, 2009

Improving academic achievement in our schools is not dependent upon a child's age, but rather the resources available to the schools and teachers in order to accomplish this task. Children mature at different ages, is a 3 or 4 year old prepared to leave home and attend school? I don't think so. There are those children who thrive in learning environments and others who need to stay at home with mom and dad. This idea of universal preschool sounds like another way for the government to make up positions, special committees and waste tax payer dollars on research and years of unnecessary debate. Some children attend head start and daycare and those programs do what is necessary to plant the academic needs of the child before they enter kindergarten. Other kids stay at home and are read books by their parents, play with blocks, color and have various learning toys that allow them to learn what is needed before they begin school.

In order to have success in universal preschool, the teachers for this program will need the skills, tools and abilities to live up to whatever standards the government will impose as academic achievement at this level. Academic achievement does not require earlier teachings, it requires government to put more money into our schools and allow teachers the opportunity to teach without worrying about mandated standards that children need to achieve at each grade level. Most children at 3 and 4 are still learning who they are, right from wrong, how to form sentences, tie their shoes, and dressing themselves. This idea that academically an early start may improve a child's achievements over the long run has nothing to do with age. What will make our children successful is a better investment into our public school systems now, a loosening on the mandated state tests and federal regulations; a getting back to the basics, the three R's, reading, writing and arithmetic. Too much emphasis is being placed on what a child should know by what age. This knowledge is not true for all children at whatever age, learning is not universal, because each child is an individual and as such can learn on different levels and at different ages.

If universal preschool is enacted, there will be more children that dislike school, the idea of becoming of school age will disappear for this children who see their older siblings going off to school and can't wait to attend themselves. The children will become less and less interested in school and may choose to end their education once they graduate rather than continuing on to college. Whoever thinks that early academics will improve long term results may need to rethink this analysis, it is not age but the tools given to our schools that what will help our children succeed.

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