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I am in almost 100% agreement with this article. Children who have access to early care and education do tend to do better in life than those who don't. But I do feel that there is one key component that is left out of this discussion and that would be the parents. No matter what kind of early exposure to learning children may have, if they don't have parents who will support them through their school career, the early stuff doesn't matter. I am in the early care and education field and I feel that early learning is very important to children. I also feel that parents have to be interested enough in their children's education in order for children to be successful in school. They have to be involved in their child's school, interested in homework, and following through with discipline. Making sure their children know that their parents value education. I feel that society wants to blame the teachers for children not succeeding in school, when those that usually fail are the ones who don't have positive views of school being exhibited at home. Teachers can only do so much, parents need to be involved as well. I would like to see a study done regarding parent participation in their child's education, and how that lends to success in school.

Early childhood education is important, but it cannot by itself ameliorate all of the problems created by living in poverty. We need to look at both the societal problem of poverty and one of the solutions is education. Families that are financially stable and not living in constant crisis must also be part of the solution to see any real change. Early childhood teachers cannot take on the responsibility of fixing a societal problem with deep roots and no quick and easy fix.

Suggested reading: "Class Dismissed" by John Marsh--intelligently challenges this notion.

Recently there was an article noting that pediatricians are beginning to tell parents how important play is for young children. This was considered especially important for children in underserved or poverty conditions. The problem that happens when "education" pundents speak of giving this population more advantages so that they can be successful later on, is that these children get more developmentally inappropriate programs heaped on top of them. What is "success" later on? Is that a stressed-out individual who can read and write (maybe) because they have been forced to do so since they were three. Or is it a whole person who, as a child, was treated as a child, allowed to play and freely explore, and only later was introduced to academics? Can early childhood educators come to some basic agreements about what we mean when we talk about early childhood education? Otherwise, it seems to me, we will continue to create stressed out children in all economic streams.

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Thanks
Stacy