Prisons or Preschools?

"Do We Invest in Preschools or Prisons?" challenged the headline of a New York Times editorial by Nicholas Kirstof in which he concluded...

"Look, we'll have to confront the pathologies of poverty at some point.  We can deal with them cheaply at the front end, in infancy.  Or we can wait and jail a troubled adolescent at the tail end.  To some extent, we face a choice between investing in preschools or prisons.

"We just might have a rare chance in the next couple of months to take steps toward such a landmark early childhood program in America.  But children can't vote, and they have no highly paid lobbyist — so it'll happen only if we, the public, speak up."

Kristof is referring to President Obama's new "Preschool for All" initiative under which all four-year-olds in low- and moderate-income families will have access to high-quality pre-kindergarten programs.  The initiative also proposes expanding the availability of Early Head Start and home visiting programs.

One controversial aspect of the President's proposal is that funding would be delivered through the public school system.  This has raised concerns about the impact on the current delivery system.  To help ascertain the views of the broader early childhood community on the provisions of "Preschool for All", Exchange and the Early Care and Education Consortium are conducting a national survey.  We invite you to take five minutes to give us your input by completing this survey.  Results will be presented in ExchangeEveryDay in a few weeks.  All who complete the survey will be eligible to participate in a drawing for one of four collections of Exchange Press resources.  

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.

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