Preschool benefits last into adulthood, study says
Preschool's many benefits last into adulthood, according to study of low-income children
Lindsey Tanner, AP Medical Writer
Friday June 10, 2011 LINK
CHICAGO (AP) -- Preschool has surprisingly enduring benefits lasting well into adulthood, according to one of the biggest, longest follow-up studies of its kind.
Better jobs, less drug abuse and fewer arrests are among advantages found in the study that tracked more than 1,000 low-income, mostly black Chicago kids for up to 25 years.
Michael Washington was one of them. Now a 31-year-old heating and air conditioning contractor, Washington attended a year of preschool at Chicago's intensive Child-Parent Center Education Program when he was 4.
The ongoing publicly funded program focuses on language development, scholastic skills and building self-confidence. It involves one or two years of half-day preschool, and up to four additional years of educational and family services in grade school. Preschool teachers have college degrees and are certified in early childhood education, and parents are encouraged to be involved in the classes.
Washington lived in an impoverished West Side community and has strong memories of preschool field trips to the library, zoo and planetarium where he learned to love science. He says he'll never forget the strong influence of his preschool teachers.
"You expect your mom and dad to care for you. But when a stranger, who has no ties to you whatsoever, takes the time to invest in you, takes the time to listen, that makes you open your eyes bigger," said Washington, now living in Blue Island, Ill. "It was real cool."
Washington got good grades in elementary and high school, and attended two years of college at Chicago State University. Unlike other kids he knew from the neighborhood who didn't attend preschool, he says he never tried drugs and was never arrested.
The study tracked nearly 900 children into adulthood who attended the program in the early 1980s, and compared them to almost 500 low-income Chicago youngsters, most of whom didn't attend preschool.
The results were published Thursday in the online version of the journal Science. They bolster findings from similar, smaller studies and show that high-quality preschool "gives you your biggest bang for the buck," said Dr. Pamela High, chair of an American Academy of Pediatrics committee that deals with early childhood issues. She was not involved in the study.
Though many preschool kids also got extra services in grade school, including intensive reading instruction, the researchers found the most enduring effects, particularly for non-academic success, were due to one or two years of preschool. The authors theorize that those intensive early childhood experiences built intellectual skills, social adjustment and motivation that helped children better navigate their high-risk environments.
To be sure, the challenges facing the children in both groups were still insurmountable to many. As adults, the average annual income for those who went to preschool is less than $12,000 and almost half of them had been arrested as adults. As dismal as those outcomes, the numbers were still better than for the group that didn't attend preschool. And experts not involved in the study called the results impressive.
"To still show really any advantage for such a long period of time is remarkable and noteworthy," said Kyle Snow, director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children's applied research center.
The study's lead researcher, Arthur Reynolds of the University of Minnesota, said the differences between the groups are meaningful and translate to big savings to society for kids who attended preschool.
The average cost per child for 18 months of preschool in 2011 is $9,000, but Reynolds' cost-benefit analysis suggests that leads to at least $90,000 in benefits per child in terms of increased earnings, tax revenue, less criminal behavior, reduced mental health costs and other measures, he said.
"No other social program for children and youth has been shown to have that level of return on investment," he said.
Among the study results:
--80 percent of the preschool group finished high school versus 75 percent of the others;
--Nearly 15 percent of the preschool group attended a four-year college, versus 11 percent of the others;
--28 percent of the preschool group had skilled jobs requiring post-high school training versus 21 percent of the others;
--Average annual adult income for the preschool group was about $11,600 versus $10,800 for the others. The low average incomes include zero earnings for those in prison and close to that for adults who were still in college or studying elsewhere.
--14 percent of the preschool group had abused drugs in adulthood versus 19 percent of the others;
--48 percent of the preschool group had been arrested in adulthood and 15 percent had been incarcerated, versus 54 percent of the others arrested and 21 percent incarcerated.
The results are based on public records, administrative data and interviews with study participants.
A spokeswoman for Chicago's public schools noted that newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel committed during his campaign to ensuring that the city's highest-risk kids have access to early childhood programs.
And despite cuts to state early childhood funding, public preschool and kindergarten programs in Chicago have not been slashed for next year, she said.
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
Friday, June 10, 2011
Migrants Becoming Skilled Workers
College-educated immigrants rising in number, report says
College-educated immigrants now exceed the share of immigrants without high-school diplomas, marking a significant shift in the education level of the nation's immigrant population, a new report shows.
The findings show that the skill level of the nation's immigrant population is more varied and counters perceptions often depicted in the debate over immigration, which has focused mostly on low-skilled illegal
"We've had a lot of discussions - and this goes triple for Arizona - about controlling immigration, managing the border better, taking care of enforcement issues. And we've been so focused on that, we haven't really acknowledged that we have a lot of different immigrants in this country," said Audrey Singer, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a co-author of the report. "They come from all different kinds of backgrounds, they have all different kinds of education levels, and, in fact, we now have more who have a college degree than don't have a high-school diploma."
The report, released Thursday, examined the education levels of immigrants in 100 metropolitan regions, including the Phoenix area. The report was written by Singer, a senior fellow at Brookings, a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank; Matthew Hall, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago; and Gordon De Jong and Deborah Roempke Graefe, population researchers at Pennsylvania State University.
Nationally, 44 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas have immigrant populations where high-skilled immigrants significantly outnumber low-skilled immigrants, the report found. Phoenix was not among the 44.
Overall, 30 percent of working-age immigrants nationally ages 25 to 64 had at least a college degree compared with 28 percent without a high-school diploma. In comparison, in 1980, 19 percent of working-age immigrants had a college degree compared with 40 percent who hadn't completed high school, the report said.
"The ratio of the two has been converging over the past 15 years," Singer said. "It's not like we are getting fewer low-skilled. But as a proportion of the total, it's dropping."
The share of highly skilled immigrants has been growing because of an influx of college-educated immigrants and a growing number of immigrants in the U.S. who attained college degrees while here, she said.
The report was based on data from the Census
About 15.4 percent of the 4.3 million residents in the Phoenix area were immigrants as of 2009, the report said. The report did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.
The report found that the Valley has far more low-skilled immigrants, 225,558, than high-skilled immigrants, 105,230. Put another way, for every 100 low-skilled immigrants, the Valley has 47 high-skilled immigrants, according to the report.
Most large cities in the Southwest received low rankings, meaning low-skilled immigrants outnumbered high-skilled immigrants. The Tucson area, like the Valley, received a low ranking. For every 100 low-skilled immigrants, there are 58 high-skilled immigrants in the Tucson area.
Of the five metro areas classified as "emerging gateways" - cities with fast-growing immigrant populations that had not experienced large amounts of immigration in the past - the Valley ranked lowest in the ratio of low-skilled immigrants to high-skilled immigrants. Atlanta, Orlando, Austin and Las Vegas, ranked higher.
Atlanta and Orlando had equal shares of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, while Austin and Las Vegas had more low-skilled immigrants than high-skilled.
The Phoenix area has more low-skilled immigrants because it is close to the border with Mexico and because the area's economy has been heavily dependent on construction and tourism and other industries that tend to draw low-skilled immigrants, said Tom Rex, who studies the Arizona economy for Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business.
"Economically, Arizona has many jobs - a disproportionate share relative to the national average - suitable to the less well-educated immigrants in construction, tourism, etc.," he said.
Many low-skilled immigrants are undocumented immigrants from Mexico. In contrast, many of the highly educated immigrants enter on H1-B visas and work for high-tech firms. H1-B visas allow employers to hire workers with special skills from other countries.
"While Arizona has large electronics and aerospace industries, the breadth of its high tech is limited, and much of the high tech in Arizona consists of production facilities, while many of the highly educated immigrants work in R&D (research and development) facilities in other states," Rex said.
Singer said the skill level of Valley immigrants in the future will depend largely on the area's industry.
Cities with higher shares of educated immigrants tend to have more diverse economies that include thriving medical, high-tech and other industries that attract highly educated immigrants, she said.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Budget Should be Based off Luke and not Ayn
Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand Problem
These days, when people question a politician’s “morality,” they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they’ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she “promote[d] the ethic of selfishness.”
Across the street from the Faith & Freedom Conference Friday afternoon, a group of religious leaders continued the attack on what they now consistently refer to as “The Ayn Rand Budget.” Father Cletus Kiley, a Catholic priest, declared the Ryan budget “does not pass our test” of Catholic teachings, and suggested that supporters of the budget “drop Ayn Rand’s books and pick up their sacred texts.”
Rand’s influence on Ryan’s politics is also the subject of a new ad produced by the religious group American Values Network, which hopes to run the spot in Ryan’s district. It’s a stinging attack, and again, one that was wholly unanticipated by the Republican rising star.
By AMY SULLIVAN of TIME
Friday, June 3, 2011 LINK
I am fairly certain that when Paul Ryan first decided to publicly share his admiration of Ayn Rand, he could not have imagined it would lead to him speed-walking to his SUV to avoid a young Catholic trying to give him a Bible and telling him to pay more attention to the Gospel of Luke. But that’s what happened Friday morning in downtown Washington after Ryan spoke to the surprisingly smallish crowd gathered for Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Conference.
I am fairly certain that when Paul Ryan first decided to publicly share his admiration of Ayn Rand, he could not have imagined it would lead to him speed-walking to his SUV to avoid a young Catholic trying to give him a Bible and telling him to pay more attention to the Gospel of Luke. But that’s what happened Friday morning in downtown Washington after Ryan spoke to the surprisingly smallish crowd gathered for Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Conference.
These days, when people question a politician’s “morality,” they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they’ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she “promote[d] the ethic of selfishness.”
Across the street from the Faith & Freedom Conference Friday afternoon, a group of religious leaders continued the attack on what they now consistently refer to as “The Ayn Rand Budget.” Father Cletus Kiley, a Catholic priest, declared the Ryan budget “does not pass our test” of Catholic teachings, and suggested that supporters of the budget “drop Ayn Rand’s books and pick up their sacred texts.”
Rand’s influence on Ryan’s politics is also the subject of a new ad produced by the religious group American Values Network, which hopes to run the spot in Ryan’s district. It’s a stinging attack, and again, one that was wholly unanticipated by the Republican rising star.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Educational Improvements Often Hollow
Waiting for a School Miracle
By DIANE RAVITCH
Published: June 01, 2011
New York Times LINK
TEN years ago, Congress adopted the No Child Left Behind legislation, mandating that all students must be proficient in reading or mathematics by 2014 or their school would be punished.
Teachers and principals have been fired and schools that were once fixtures in their community have been closed and replaced. In time, many of the new schools will close, too, unless they avoid enrolling low-performing students, like those who don't read English or are homeless or have profound disabilities.
Educators know that 100 percent proficiency is impossible, given the enormous variation among students and the impact of family income on academic performance. Nevertheless, some politicians believe that the right combination of incentives and punishments will produce dramatic improvement. Anyone who objects to this utopian mandate, they maintain, is just making an excuse for low expectations and bad teachers.
To prove that poverty doesn't matter, political leaders point to schools that have achieved stunning results in only a few years despite the poverty around them. But the accounts of miracle schools demand closer scrutiny. Usually, they are the result of statistical legerdemain.
In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama hailed the Bruce Randolph School in Denver, where the first senior class had a graduation rate of 97 percent. At a celebration in February for Teach for America's 20th anniversary, Education Secretary Arne Duncan sang the praises of an all-male, largely black charter school in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, Urban Prep Academy, which replaced a high school deemed a failure. And in March, Mr. Obama and Mr. Duncan joined Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, to laud the transformation of Miami Central Senior High School.
But the only miracle at these schools was a triumph of public relations.
Mr. Obama's praise for Randolph, which he said had been "one of the worst schools in Colorado," seems misplaced. Noel Hammatt, a former teacher and instructor at Louisiana State University, looked at data from the Web site of the Colorado Department of Education.
True, Randolph (originally a middle school, to which a high school was added) had a high graduation rate, but its ACT scores were far below the state average, indicating that students are not well prepared for college. In its middle school, only 21 percent were proficient or advanced in math, placing Randolph in the fifth percentile in the state (meaning that 95 percent of schools performed better). Only 10 percent met the state science standards. In writing and reading, the school was in the first percentile.
Gary Rubinstein, an education blogger and Teach for America alumnus who has been critical of the program, checked Mr. Duncan's claims about Urban Prep. Of 166 students who entered as ninth graders, only 107 graduated. Astonishingly, the state Web site showed that only 17 percent passed state tests, compared to 64 percent in the low-performing Chicago public school district.
Miami Central had been "reconstituted," meaning that the principal and half the staff members were fired. The president said that "performance has skyrocketed by more than 60 percent in math," and that graduation rates rose to 63 percent, from 36 percent. But in math, it ranks 430th out of 469 high schools in Florida. Only 56 percent of its students meet state math standards, and only 16 percent met state reading standards. The graduation rate rose, but the school still ranks 431st, well below the state median graduation rate of 87 percent. The improvements at Miami Central are too small and too new to conclude that firing principals and teachers works.
To be sure, the hyping of test-score improvements that prove to be fleeting predated the Obama administration.
In 2005, New York's mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, held a news conference at Public School 33 in the Bronx to celebrate an astonishing 49-point jump in the proportion of fourth grade students there who met state standards in reading. In 2004, only 34 percent reached proficiency, but in 2005, 83 percent did.
It seemed too good to be true - and it was. A year later, the proportion of fourth-graders at P.S. 33 who passed the state reading test dropped by 41 points. By 2010, the passing rate was 37 percent, nearly the same as before 2005.
What is to be learned from these examples of inflated success? The news media and the public should respond with skepticism to any claims of miraculous transformation. The achievement gap between children from different income levels exists before children enter school.
Families are children's most important educators. Our society must invest in parental education, prenatal care and preschool. Of course, schools must improve; every one should have a stable, experienced staff, adequate resources and a balanced curriculum including the arts, foreign languages, history and science.
If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.
Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, is the author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."
By DIANE RAVITCH
Published: June 01, 2011
New York Times LINK
TEN years ago, Congress adopted the No Child Left Behind legislation, mandating that all students must be proficient in reading or mathematics by 2014 or their school would be punished.
Teachers and principals have been fired and schools that were once fixtures in their community have been closed and replaced. In time, many of the new schools will close, too, unless they avoid enrolling low-performing students, like those who don't read English or are homeless or have profound disabilities.
Educators know that 100 percent proficiency is impossible, given the enormous variation among students and the impact of family income on academic performance. Nevertheless, some politicians believe that the right combination of incentives and punishments will produce dramatic improvement. Anyone who objects to this utopian mandate, they maintain, is just making an excuse for low expectations and bad teachers.
To prove that poverty doesn't matter, political leaders point to schools that have achieved stunning results in only a few years despite the poverty around them. But the accounts of miracle schools demand closer scrutiny. Usually, they are the result of statistical legerdemain.
In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama hailed the Bruce Randolph School in Denver, where the first senior class had a graduation rate of 97 percent. At a celebration in February for Teach for America's 20th anniversary, Education Secretary Arne Duncan sang the praises of an all-male, largely black charter school in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, Urban Prep Academy, which replaced a high school deemed a failure. And in March, Mr. Obama and Mr. Duncan joined Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, to laud the transformation of Miami Central Senior High School.
But the only miracle at these schools was a triumph of public relations.
Mr. Obama's praise for Randolph, which he said had been "one of the worst schools in Colorado," seems misplaced. Noel Hammatt, a former teacher and instructor at Louisiana State University, looked at data from the Web site of the Colorado Department of Education.
True, Randolph (originally a middle school, to which a high school was added) had a high graduation rate, but its ACT scores were far below the state average, indicating that students are not well prepared for college. In its middle school, only 21 percent were proficient or advanced in math, placing Randolph in the fifth percentile in the state (meaning that 95 percent of schools performed better). Only 10 percent met the state science standards. In writing and reading, the school was in the first percentile.
Gary Rubinstein, an education blogger and Teach for America alumnus who has been critical of the program, checked Mr. Duncan's claims about Urban Prep. Of 166 students who entered as ninth graders, only 107 graduated. Astonishingly, the state Web site showed that only 17 percent passed state tests, compared to 64 percent in the low-performing Chicago public school district.
Miami Central had been "reconstituted," meaning that the principal and half the staff members were fired. The president said that "performance has skyrocketed by more than 60 percent in math," and that graduation rates rose to 63 percent, from 36 percent. But in math, it ranks 430th out of 469 high schools in Florida. Only 56 percent of its students meet state math standards, and only 16 percent met state reading standards. The graduation rate rose, but the school still ranks 431st, well below the state median graduation rate of 87 percent. The improvements at Miami Central are too small and too new to conclude that firing principals and teachers works.
To be sure, the hyping of test-score improvements that prove to be fleeting predated the Obama administration.
In 2005, New York's mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, held a news conference at Public School 33 in the Bronx to celebrate an astonishing 49-point jump in the proportion of fourth grade students there who met state standards in reading. In 2004, only 34 percent reached proficiency, but in 2005, 83 percent did.
It seemed too good to be true - and it was. A year later, the proportion of fourth-graders at P.S. 33 who passed the state reading test dropped by 41 points. By 2010, the passing rate was 37 percent, nearly the same as before 2005.
What is to be learned from these examples of inflated success? The news media and the public should respond with skepticism to any claims of miraculous transformation. The achievement gap between children from different income levels exists before children enter school.
Families are children's most important educators. Our society must invest in parental education, prenatal care and preschool. Of course, schools must improve; every one should have a stable, experienced staff, adequate resources and a balanced curriculum including the arts, foreign languages, history and science.
If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.
Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, is the author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Reagan taxation > Obama taxation
GOP Can’t Handle The Truth: Taxes Are Lower Under Obama Than Reagan
Republicans attending a White House meeting on Wednesday didn’t take kindly to President Obama telling them tax rates were higher during the Reagan administration. GOP members engaged in a lot of “eye-rolling,” according to a member who was on hand to hear Obama, who invited House Republicans to the White House for discussions on the debt ceiling. [...]
“[The President] made a comment like the tax rate is the lightest, even more than (under former President) Reagan,” Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) told The Hill following the meeting. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) joked that during the meeting, “We learned we had the lowest tax rates in history … lower than Reagan!”
That House Republicans find this preposterous is symptomatic of the hold Reagan mythology has over them. After all, for seven of Reagan’s eight years in office, the top tax rate was higher than the current 35 percent. In six of those years, it was 50 percent or more. And every year that Regan was in office, the bottom tax bracket was higher than the current ten percent.
For a family of four, the “average income tax rate under Reagan in 1983 was 11.06 percent. Under Clinton in 1992, it was 9.18 percent. And under Obama in 2010, it was 4.68 percent.” During Reagan’s time, income tax revenue ranged from 7.8 to 9.4 percent of GDP. Last year, it was 6.2 percent and is not projected to climb back to 9 percent until 2016. In fact, in 2009, Americans paid their lowest taxes in 60 years.
Republicans are very fond of saying that the U.S. has “a spending problem, not a revenue problem.” But the truth is that revenue has plunged due to the recession and to continued misguided tax cuts, and revenue needs to be raised to eventually bring the budget into balance. And Reagan knew that taxes were an important part of the budget equation. After all, he “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years.
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