Here’s my question about all the calls for universal pre-K: Are the advocates — Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo, President Obama — willing to do what’s needed to have it actually make a difference?
They all talk up pre-K as vital to ending inequality in the long term, and it could be. There’s just no doubt that “underclass” children lag other kids because of what we can call their parents’ lack of human capital. That is, the mom (or, if the child is lucky, both parents) lacks not just the vocabulary and other intellectual know-how to share, but also things like self-discipline. They just have fewer skills to pass on — and the toddler years are hugely important time for learning; once you fall behind, it’s brutally hard to catch up.
But replacing what parents can’t give their kids isn’t as easy as the advocates pretend — and you still need the parents to help.
For starters, they need to get the toddler there every day. My own 4-year-old is in a Montessori preschool. And one thing all Montessoris emphasize is that the child has to attend every day for the school to do its job.
Yet getting your kid to school every day is a lot harder than many realize, particularly for single moms. You have to get up in time, get everybody fed and dressed (and maybe pack a lunch and/or the blanket the child won’t nap without, if it’s a full-day), then navigate the streets and/or subway. If you have several kids, mastering the chaos can be daunting — and what if one child is sick? You may not feel safe leaving her alone while you take the others to school.
Then, too, some days it’s just easier to stay in bed and let the TV handle child care. (If you don’t think that a single mom, unemployed and living in the projects — or worse, a shelter — is at hugely heightened risk of crippling depression, well, get a life.)
And what if your toddler doesn’t want to go? They can be stubborn little buggers. Four mornings out of five, we have a talk with young Quentin about why he has to go to his “new” school, the Montessori, not his old one (day care).
Which brings us to the unsung heroes of charter school success — the office ladies (and, no doubt, office gentlemen).
Eva Moskowitz of the Success Academies waxes eloquent about the professionals who follow up every time a student misses school — calling number after number that same day to alert and/or nag the parents. The office needs as many numbers as possible — of other phones, of family or even friends — because these most vulnerable New Yorkers often don’t have the same phone for long. They may have to move, or never be able to afford a landline and rely on intermittent use of prepaid phones.
In other words, the Success Academies (and, I’m sure, most other high-performing charters) go several extra miles to make sure the kids are actually in class. It’s a labor that never lets up, and it must drives some parents crazy — but it’s the sort of tough love that gives these kids a better chance at a good future.
It’s hard to imagine most pre-K programs doing anything like that. According to the city Department of Education, pre-K attendance citywide in the last full school year was 90 percent.
Now, attendance numbers for the city schools are notoriously inflated — bad ones hurt your funding. Even so, that’s one child in 10 missing every school day.
I know my wife and I would hear all holy hell from Miss N. if our Quentin were missing one day in 10 — and make sure it didn’t happen again.
In this light, it’s tragic that the city’s existing pre-K programs exclude charter schools, as do Mayor de Blasio’s plans for pre-K expansion. If you really want to help the kids, wouldn’t it be better to expand to charters first?
And if you won’t do that, are you willing to find some other way to apply the tough love needed to make your signature effort not just a political victory, but one that brings real change to the city’s most needy?