RSS Feed MenuEducators and government officials are beginning to consider, more seriously than ever, plans to advance early public education in the United States.
Obama hopes to “ensure access to high-quality early childhood education programs and child care opportunities so children enter kindergarten ready to learn”. His argument is that a new era demands new standards of academic achievement – standards that would be met with the implementation of a more easily accessible pre-kindergarten system. This, however, is not a novel endeavor. In 2004, founder and executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, John Burbank, issued a report detailing “strategic pathways towards statewide universal pre-kindergarten in Washington State.” Many other states, such as Florida, Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania have gone so far as to implement state-funded universal pre-K.
However, nowhere is a nationalized pre-kindergarten system more entrenched than in France, where an estimated 30% of 2-year-olds and nearly 100% of 3 to 6-year-olds attend the celebrated Écoles Maternelles (nursery schools).
Les Écoles Maternelles are a long-standing tradition in France, dating back to the 18th century, and taking off in the 19th century with the explosion of the Industrial Revolution. Today, the schools are widely accepted institutions within the French public education system. The majority of French people believe that these schools not only aid in the development of children’s early “socialization,” but in the essential function of a modern French family.
While living in Paris, my landlord P told me that she was not even forced to wait until her daughter turned two before she placing her in free childcare and returning to work. P proudly explained that many Parisian apartment buildings have concierges, who willingly watch the infants while their parents are at work.
“It was a comfort,” she claimed, “being able to leave my [1-year-old] with someone I knew, who lived in my building.”
When I asked P if she was ever distraught or even a bit perturbed when putting her baby in the hands of the concierge every morning, she replied that sitting at home all day with an infant drove her crazy. She longed for adult companionship and stimulation in the work place, expressing immense gratitude toward both her concierge and the following year’s École Maternelle (Incidentally, P also worked for the Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, a single mother who became infamous in January of 2009 for giving birth to daughter Zohra and returning to work a mere 5 days later).
Later, when talking to my student adviser in Paris, MC, I realized that P’s attitude was not far off from the norm. MC insisted that the majority of French women work; that it is not at all bizarre to assume a new mother would resume her career as soon as possible, entrusting her child in the care of another.
Many parents in the United States laud the French system for being a progressive necessity. Helen Blank, of the National Women’s Law Center, asserts that “we [Americans] have a way to go” when it comes to providing easier, cheaper access to childcare and preschools, and that “France is one model” for the direction in which we ought to go.
However, despite assertions that the United States ought to aspire to a similar education system, supporters often tend to disregard crucial aspects of French society that simply do not transfer to the United States. For instance, in France, “[my] maman and papa were always home for lunch – as was I – until about the age of 10,” says my 20-year-old Parisian friend, who also emphasizes the longstanding French tradition of a two-hour (if not longer) lunch break.
Many Americans born prior to the 1980s may well remember going home during the school day for lunch – a tradition that has long since been abandoned in the United States. So, while French women are generally more willing to put their kids in childcare or school at an early age in order to return to their jobs, they have not resigned themselves to seeing their children sparingly throughout the workweek.
As childhood development theorists, Elinor Goldschmied and Sonia Jackson, have asserted in their People Under Three research article, “parents are by far the most important people in the lives of their children, a fact which schools and nurseries have only slowly come to recognize.” Studies have not only reinforced this commonly accepted premise, but have proven that early childcare can have detrimental effects on young children.
A study released by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development concluded that, “[t]he more time children spent in child care from birth to age four-and-a-half… [the] less likely [they were] to get along with others, as more assertive, as disobedient, and as aggressive.” However, the most affirmative conclusion of the study was that
the strongest predictor of how well a child behaves [is] a feature of maternal parenting that the researchers described as sensitivity–how attuned a mother is to a child’s wants and needs. The behaviors of the sensitive mother are child centered; the sensitive mother is aware of the child’s needs, moods, interests, and capabilities. She allows this awareness to guide her interactions with her child. Children of more sensitive mothers were more competent socially, less likely to engage in disruptive behavior, and less likely to be involved in conflicts with their caregivers and teachers.
Essentially, young children need daily interaction with their parents – specifically, their mothers. While French mothers seem to have succeed in striking a more agreeable balance between childcare and mothering – for many reasons ranging from extended maternity leave provided by the state, to hour-long lunch breaks – the same balance does not transfer across the Atlantic. Not to mention, in France, the welfare state assumes the cost and responsibility of providing qualified, adequate care to children in les Écoles Maternelles … but in France – a country smaller than the state of Texas – government oversight of these institutions is more feasible. If a similar universal pre-K system were implemented in the United States, it would be the federal government’s job to not only ensure that the thousands of new pre-K teachers were competent educators, but also competent caregivers for children so heavily influenced by, and dependent upon parental nurturing.
In the United States, critics of the Obama administration’s promotion of early education enrollment range from new mothers hesitant to part with their infant children, to policy makers insisting that such an endeavor would not only be incredibly invasive into family life, but impossibly expensive.
Madeline // Jul 27, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Where are French men in all of this? One assumes that they are also working. Surely they are involved in the decisions regarding their children’s care?
Reading this post conjures up a vision of a nation full of single moms, handing their babies off to concierges and doormen while skipping off to work, when the reality is that there is a much lower percentage of single parents in France than in the US.
loki1967 // Jul 27, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I see this effort as a good thing. Unless you are wealthy (top 20%) you are sending your kid to day care which costs quite a bit of money because its pretty impossible to have a family on one income if the lead earner is in the bottom 80% of earners. 80% of all jobs average $33k. The other 20% are over $65k. So any support that helps families take care of their children and help prepare them for a great future I am all for.
TheRightsWriter // Jul 27, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Thank you for covering such a vital and underexplored aspect of Obama’s agenda.
Madeleine asked, “Where are French men in all of this?” With their mistresses.
JeninCT // Jul 27, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I agree that France’s size and welfare state make universal pre-K and childcare more feasable. States might have better luck with it than the federal government, though. States can be more responsive to local needs. Ultimately, kids do best when their parents raise them only if the parents want to raise them, and those who are looking forward to going back to work 5 days after giving birth shouldn’t be taking care of kids anyway.
I personally wouldn’t have traded my time with my kids for all the tea in China.
msmilack // Jul 27, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Obama’s hope that all children can be given a good head start for their education is not ipso facto a nationalized program. Where did you get that idea? Using the word “nationalized” is a politically packed word that does not define his program.
Claude // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:10 pm
The basic problem with American education is not pre-school or the early grades. It’s middle and high school. Five and six-year-old children in the U.S. do fine compared to other countries. It’s when kids get old enough to be heavily affected by popular culture and peer pressure that everything starts to deteriorate badly. Politicians focus on early education programs because little kids are cute and blameless and provide a better photo opportunity. Besides, who wants to be seen as a prude or a censor by criticizing the nihilism of the entertainment industry? Since our political leaders don’t focus on the problem, they don’t come up with solutions.
JeninCT // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:53 pm
msmilack wrote:
“… nationalized program. Where did you get that idea?”
Um, from the article. Which article did you read?
Claude wrote:
“The basic problem with American education is not pre-school or the early grades. It’s middle and high school. Five and six-year-old children in the U.S. do fine compared to other countries. It’s when kids get old enough to be heavily affected by popular culture and peer pressure that everything starts to deteriorate badly. ”
I completely agree that middle school and high school are where we lose kids, and low expectations are as much to blame as the distractions kids face.
TheRightsWriter // Jul 27, 2010 at 7:06 pm
msmilack wrote:
“… nationalized program. Where did you get that idea?”
From the Obama ‘08 campaign. It was a plank in his platform. I wrote about it in passing here.
SFTor1 // Jul 28, 2010 at 2:05 am
A nationalized program seems to be an excellent idea. Let’s do it.
msmilack // Jul 28, 2010 at 3:14 am
The RightsWriter
and
SFTor1
Maybe I don’t know what “nationalized” means after all (I thought I did): or, perhaps because I’m expecting to read bias, I have brought my own. I can only say that when I read that word with that tone what I heard was the accusation of some socialist plot and it was that to which I objected. Did I misunderstand the author’s meaning?
I will read what you wrote tomorrow, RightsWriter (not now only because it’s 3 am and I shouldn’t even be blogging) so thanks for the link.
bamboozer // Jul 28, 2010 at 7:15 am
Have Conservatives labeled pre-school as CommuSocialist brain washing yet? Well give it time!
JeninCT // Jul 28, 2010 at 7:13 pm
msmiliak wrote:
“…or, perhaps because I’m expecting to read bias, I have brought my own. I can only say that when I read that word with that tone what I heard was the accusation of some socialist plot.”
I read back and only found the word used in reference to France, there was only inference to a nationalized US policy. I do admire your self examination, though. Maybe I have to wait for 3am to do the same
msmilack // Jul 29, 2010 at 4:00 am
JeninCT
For what it is worth: the word “nationalized” was not used only in reference to France; the way the sentence is set up, the adjective along with the school in the discussion clearly alludes back to what was just discussed (as in “here is another example”).
Self-examination for me follows every critical remark I write; I call it writer’s remorse and because I experience it, I try to use a little will power before hitting submit. I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings even if I disagree with their point of view.
I believe the word bothered me also because this particular young author’s earlier writings have been so consistently and clearly biased. It isn’t her point of view that bothers me; it’s how she presents it. I don’t have to agree with an author to appreciate their view but I do expect to read essays that attempt to be objective and gather the facts. Many bloggers go directly from school to the blogged page without benefit of instruction or journalism school, so they don’t always know the difference. As a writing teacher, I have an impulse to teach and make comments that can be taken seriously or ignored (as in any teaching situation). It may not matter to her at all if her writing sounds objective, if she properly attributes sources, if she learns the best way to write a story; but if none of those things matter to her, then the chance of her writing being taken seriously outside of this blog will not occur.
And that is what I confess to at 4 a.m.
Go Away UPK // Jul 29, 2010 at 8:25 pm
“Universal Pre-K” is not universal. It is not lessening the achievement gap ,which is the ultimate goal of the program. It is not reaching the children that would benefit most because in many states children are chosen by random lottery and not by need. It is not reaching more children – it is shuffling the cost of preschool from privately paid to publicly funded making tax payers responsible for the cost.
States are having difficulty maintaining existing K-12 programs. Our limited resources should be given to those most in need. Preschool should be targeted based on economic need just like free lunch. Families that can afford to do so should pay for private preschool.
To learn more about Universal Pre-K visit http://www.goawayupk.com