Testimony of Michelle Bodden before New York City Council Committee on Education

Jan 27, 2005 12:00 AM

Chairperson Moskowitz, members of the education committee: We at the United Federation of Teachers are glad you have chosen to hear testimony on this topic today. Our union and our national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, have been champions of high- quality early childhood education and universal public pre-kindergarten for a long time.

The UFT has made pre-K one of its four pillars of education reform, along with highly-qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and safe and orderly schools, ­in our recommendations for the use of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity funds.

Our policy recommendations on early childhood education are rooted in very persuasive research and also on the observations of our early elementary teachers—that children who have attended early childhood programs enter school ready to learn, healthier, better behaved and better able to handle the demands of school. Research shows these advantages persist into adulthood.

But I am not here to review the research, compelling as it is. I have two purposes in testifying before you today. The first is to look at where we are and where we ought to be in providing preschool to all the children in the city. The second is to talk about the characteristics of high quality early childhood education, and to caution you about curriculums that do not meet these quality measures.

1. There were 217,327 three- and four-year-olds in New York City at last count. More than half of these children were born into poverty—a 15% increase, by the way, from a decade ago. These are the children for whom quality preschool can mean the difference between productive lives and lifetimes of personal and academic failure.
2. Of these 200,000-plus four-year-olds, less than one-quarter, 48,000, are enrolled in pre-K programs in the New York City public schools, either in targeted or Universal Prekindergarten.
3. There are no three year olds in public preschool at all, despite overwhelming evidence that two years of preschool is what really makes the difference for disadvantaged children.
4. Most of the 48,000 four-year-olds in preschool attend half-day programs – two-and one-half hours a day—which mean that many working parents cannot use them. In fact, we are not even spending all the UPK funds available because demand for half-day programs is just not that high. Working families have been begging for full-day programs so that preschool can be a realistic option for their children. Even increased day-care funding that would allow a combination of pre-K and day care could address their dilemmas.

We commend the Bloomberg administration for the part of its CFE plan that would expand pre-K to a full day program for four-year-olds and to launch a half-day program for three-year-olds. This would be an excellent use of CFE funds. And we commiserate with the city as it confronts the dilemma of where to put them. Space is tight, but when we had an increase in enrollment, as we did in the last decade, the City found all sorts of ways to create seats, albeit temporary ones, very quickly.

1. There is not enough room for expanding pre-K in the public schools. Seventy percent of UPK children are in programs operated in and by community-based organizations. The good news is that CBO pre-school teachers are state certified and the programs are often well run and effective. The bad news is those teachers have a much lower salary scale than public school teachers, so low that many of them cannot support their own families. Also, of course, there is a lot of turnover at these sites.
2. Lastly, we are not doing enough to track children’s academic progress. Universal pre-k began in 1998, and the cohort of four-year-olds from that first year entered the 4th grade last year. The DOE has an opportunity to identify these students and compare their reading and math scores on the fourth grade tests with those who did not attend pre-K. We urge the Department to make such an evaluation and report it to the public. This kind of fine-grained analysis is an essential part of the DOE’s mission, and would be very useful in focusing pre-K resources to areas of the city where they could have the greatest impact.

In remaining minutes, I want to address the issue of pre-school and kindergarten quality.

Our early-childhood teachers report there is a concerted effort in their schools to push down the First Grade curriculum into Kindergarten, and the Kindergarten curriculum into Pre-K.

The justification is that these very young children must “catch up” and be “ready” for the literacy and numeracy curriculums that they will encounter in first and second grade.

Their principals and supervisors are insisting on workbooks, on memorization and on pushing fine-motor skills, even in pre-K classes.

Just as an example, here is the daily schedule of one Brooklyn kindergarten this year:

8:40-9:00 morning meeting

9:00-9:15 read aloud

9:15-9:30 word study

9:35-10:25 library (or if it’s Thursday, art)

10:30-11:20 reading workshop

11:25-12:15 lunch

12:20-1:10 writer’s workshop

1:15-1:35 shared reading

1:35-2:05 science (or if it’s Tuesday, music)

2:10-2:40 math

2:40-2:50 read aloud

 

No recess. No centers. Almost no arts. Two periods of gym a week. Long literacy blocks that are not appropriate for most four-year-olds and could in fact be damaging.

I myself was a primary-grade teacher for eight years, and I can tell you that this distorted emphasis on “academics” does not result in children who are ready and eager to learn.

Play is the work of children. Cutting children off from exploration in favor of scripted learning programs that focus on academic skills alone is short-circuiting their development and turning school into enemy territory. They will rebel, maybe not immediately, because children try so hard to please their teachers, but eventually they will try to get out. Who could blame them?

So expanded resources are important, but it is also important that we put our limited resources into high quality early education. What are the components?

It should be taught by certified teachers who are specialists in early-childhood learning and understand the developmental needs of young children. Those teachers should be supported in using their professional judgment on curriculum and scheduling.

Early-childhood classrooms must include the arts and other elements of curriculum that allow children to develop their higher-order thinking skills, not just their rote abilities.

Classes should be small enough for children to have extensive interactions with teachers, to get individualized attention and have time for activites like going outdoors or doing art projects that take time.

All kindergartens should have paraprofessionals. It is not possible for teachers in the early grades to do big projects, to differentiate instruction, or to provide targeted intervention when there is no other adult in the room. Paras do everything from preparing and organizing materials to overseeing small reading groups. They are not a classroom “extra,” they are essential for providing high-quality instruction with this age children.

Programs should involve parents and use the opportunity to educate parents on child development.

They should integrate children with mild to moderate disabilities, establishing these children’s rights to the same education services as their peers

Pre-K, kindergarten and first grade classrooms are the place to assure that health and nutrition services are provided to young children.

 

These are not the kind of “nice if we had unlimited funds” goals that educators only dream of. These are goals very much within our reach, and we urge this Committee to make early education work well for the children of the city.

Thank you. I’d be glad to answer your questions.