Washington Commentary - 'Playing' with Equity and Early Education

ONE OF THE most popular items for sale at the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in Oak Park, Illinois, is a set of wooden blocks. They were originally designed by Friedrich Froebel, founder of the modern kindergarten. Just telling parents that Wright credited these blocks, given to him by his mother, with inspiring him to look at space in creative ways is enough to make them a best seller among visitors who want to foster genius in their toddlers. While Froebel found uses for structured play, as did Maria Montessori some time later, his ideas about kindergarten were expressed in the word itself, which means 'child's garden.' It is a place for exploring, growing through play, and becoming familiar with a wider environment. One wonders what Froebel would think of kindergarten today, especially the picture painted by the first-ever national study of kindergarten by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The sample of 22,000 children will be followed through the fifth grade, thereby providing a wealth of information about their experiences in the early grades in public and private schools. This Early Childhood Longitudinal Study was a particular goal of Pascal Forgione, the former NCES commissioner, who is now superintendent of schools in Austin, Texas. The knowledge generated by this study will be a legacy of Forgione's leadership. One early finding would probably please Froebel. For all practical purposes, kindergarten is now part of this country's universal education system. In the 1998-99 school year, four million children were enrolled in kindergarten, 95% of them for the first time. Most of them (85%) were enrolled in public schools. More than half (55%) attended all-day programs. According to last year's magnificent series by Education Week on the past century of American education, the broad acceptance of kindergarten was cinched by changes in the work force. Fully 75% of mothers with children under age 18 are in the work force. Thus of the 10 million children under age 5, half are either in child care or have parents seeking to make child-care arrangements. While some still argue for stay-at-home moms, they run into lots of deaf ears when the children are ready for kindergarten. In fact, four out of five children already know what it means to be in the full-time care of someone other than one of their parents. Perhaps that is why the NCES study sets a 'benchmark' for specific skills the kindergartners bring with them into the classroom. And perhaps this is where Froebel would wonder what happened to his concept of early childhood education. According to the study, 66% of first-time kindergartners are proficient in recognizing their letters, 29% are proficient in understanding the beginning sounds of words, and 17% are proficient in understanding the ending sounds. Almost all of them (94%) recognize numbers and shapes and can count to 10. Not surprisingly, children who enter kindergarten at a later age know more. Parents and teachers report that the children are very social, and few show signs of problem behaviors. Teachers' judgments tend to be harsher, even at this age, with regard to children whose mothers have less than a high school education and are single or have been on welfare. Teachers' perceptions of children with behavior problems also fall along racial lines. Black children are more likely than white or Asian children to be seen as causing trouble. When parents rate their children on behavior, white and black parents judge them about the same. Asian parents are the most confident about how their children behave in school. Apparently, the social marker of race begins to separate children very early. Among the many indicators of children's well-being, the level of the mother's education is extremely important. …