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Early Childhood Ed

Will "universal preschool" for 3- and 4-year-olds improve academic achievement over the long term?

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No
59% 226 votes Total: 385 votes
Yes
41% 159 votes

Probably it will have a positive effect on academic achievement later. But the question is if that's desirable. A 3-year old can't decide for itself what it wants, so it depends on the decisions of the parents. And unfortunately too many parents nowadays want their children to be geniuses and won't settle for anything less. They care more about the future career of their children than about giving them a normal, happy childhood.

Children should be allowed to be children, which is hard enough nowadays. Young children too often behave like adults, because they are confronted with all the problems of the adult world. They need to deal with divorce of the parents, violence in the neighborhood, all the misery in the world (which they see on television), eating disorders, overweight and many more. Why adding more to that load by sending them to extra school lessons when they still wear diapers? Why can't children just play, get stories read, discover the world at their own pace and just be happy and carefree? Troubles and difficulties should be kept away from children till they are old enough to deal with them. School grades aren't something toddlers can deal with.
And as children always want to please their parents they will feel like they must achieve their very best when at school and when they don't do that well it can get traumatic. Toddlers that get depressed because of bad grades, how much worse can you get it?

Please parents, choose a good primary school for your kids and send them there when they are ready. My first two years at preschool/kindergarten weren't meant to study, but we learned to play together, sing songs, do craft works and function in a group. I first went to real school when I was 6 and that worked really well. It really hasn't influenced my IQ or career in a bad way. So why bothering young children? It's better to have a happy average child than an unhappy genius.

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Will "universal preschool" for 3- and 4-year-olds improve academic achievement over the long term?

Yes
  • 1 of 14

    by Eva Smart

    Voluntary Pre-K programs have already proven to be a great success in many states. Universal Pre-K would be a huge a...read more

  • 2 of 14

    by Merrilee Walker

    Anyone familiar with Early Childhood Inclusion Programs understands the benefits of the universal preschool model. T...read more

No
  • 1 of 25

    by Rebecca Thornberry

    Universal preschool, or preschool that is available to all children, benefits working parents, providing them with fr...read more

  • 2 of 25

    by Alida Chacon

    Universal preschool will not improve academic achievement over the long term. We have been sold this mumble jumble b...read more

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