Will the Joplin & Kirkwood School District Playbooks of 'Educational Equity' Doom Private Preschool Providers?

It's government to the rescue.  Or is it?  Joplin Missouri suffered a devastating tornado earlier this year.  Lives were lost, properties destroyed and services delayed.  A result of the tornado was a disruption in child care provision as many private centers were destroyed.

Private business owners tried their best to adapt to these circumstances such as day care center owner Diana Heckmaster.  From the Joplin Globe:

She and her daughter own The Learning Tree, which opened in a temporary location at 101 Plaza Drive after the May 22 tornado.  At her old location, she was licensed for 56 children, with 46 enrolled. At her new home, she’s licensed for 48, but is at 30 with no waiting list. She said she expects to be licensed for as many as 88 children after a state inspection in January.

This private citizen should be patted on her back for her nimbleness and plan of action after a disaster.  The government should be delighted it has private taxpaying citizens contributing to the pot of state funding.  But alas, this is not the case:

The Joplin School District has announced plans to expand its day care openings to accommodate up to 600 children by next August — 425 more than the district serves now.  Orem said that if the district saw a need to go beyond the 600 children planned for next August, it would expand further. The district would likely have to hire at least 20 more teachers for 600 children, Orem said, to fulfill required provider-to-child ratios. The day care would be open to the community, not just district employees who have children that age.

Why does the district believe there is a need for the government to provide day care for its students?  The article states that 24 of the 35 centers have reopened.  One day care provider said that many residents left the area after the tornado and many centers are not at capacity at this time.  

Apparently the district believes only public education can provide what small children "need" and it is exists to help those parents who don't want to pay for childcare.  The bureaucracy's only goal is to help students and families:

Orem said there are many benefits for children who attend early childhood centers, including better pre-reading skills, more extensive vocabularies and stronger basic math skills.

She said the district’s goal of improving graduation rates is also tied to day care, since children who attend day care have higher graduation rates.



Told that some local providers didn’t see the need for the school to create spots for up to 600 children, and that they were worried the school might undercut their business, Orem said: “We’re not trying to take away from any preschools or day care or home care. We were told that there has been a need and there were waiting lists with people taking buses to Webb City and Carl Junction and parents weren’t working, or that licensed day care was too (expensive).

“I understand the day cares’ position. I know that they want to keep their day cares full and we are not trying to compete with them at all. We just want to make sure the need is filled. There was a need before the storm and a need now, and it’s going to take time to build back.”
 
I would like to read those studies she cites on educational progress for children in day care centers.  I've read studies where daycare has been shown to not be beneficial to young children, and in fact, any gains made by children are negated by third grade.  You can see how this is advancing.  My school district (Kirkwood) implemented "free" kindergarten this past month at an initial cost of $850,000. 

You can figure out the scenario.  When the test scores for 5 year olds aren't where the consortia believe they should be, we will institute "free" preschool.  This universal "free" preschool was seriously debated in our long-term educational vision for the state, Educated Citizenry 2020.  One senator involved in the plan said "it is gathering dust on the shelf".  I'm not sure that is true.

According to the article:

The at-risk students at Joplin Early Childhood qualify for federal Title I funding so their families don’t have to pay for services.  

The families don't pay for the service, but taxpayers do.  This isn't fair to middle class parents, though, (this was the "educational equity" argument from our superintendent to open the "free" kindergarten program to all students) so now the districts must offer this to families who can afford unmandated programs:


Orem said children from middle-income families have the hardest time finding quality day care because low-income families qualify for Head Start and other programs, but middle-class families do not.

Look for what's happening in Joplin (with the excuse of a tornado) and brace for it coming to your district soon.  It's wrapped in these terms and beliefs:

• "educational equity"
• the government is responsible for the cost of educating ALL children (regardless of income) from birth 
• skewed or nonexistent studies on the benefit of preschool education tied to long term educational benefit
• the cessation of private companies providing childcare services since it is now "free" to all families
• the arrogant attitude of public school bureaucrats stating the public system will provide better pre-reading skills, more extensive vocabularies and stronger basic math skills
•  

Start recognizing the circular arguments and half truths from the districts:

• these programs are not "free"...the cost is funded by the Federal government, state government and/or the district via taxes
• the government does not necessarily provide better services than private industries 
•  by using taxpayer money, districts are relegating many private day care providers to the unemployment line, and the taxpayers will have a double taxburden supporting more public employees AND unemployed private employees.  

From two other day care providers:

“You look at the providers that have lost everything and they’re still trying to open back up, and if the school is going to open it up, I don’t know if there’s going to be enough kids,” Gould said. “It could put some of us that are small-business people at a different standpoint.”

Kid’s Corner, 2602 S. Wall Ave., also was destroyed in the tornado. Owner Terri Malcom said the center is rebuilding on the same location and hopes to open in April. It is licensed for 60 children.

“It will hurt us bad and they’re going to use our own tax dollars to do it. Doesn’t feel very fair.”  



 

Are "Fa Sho", "Crunk" and "Imma' " Accepted Vocabulary Words on the MAP Test? They are in the Ferguson Florissant School District.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know we have questions regarding standardized testing, particularly the MAP test. Many districts have completed one week of the federally mandated tests, while other districts will be starting this week.

The Joplin Globe reports MAP is just starting in Joplin and how intensive the process of the annual testing has become:

At many local school districts, preparation for the MAP goes on all year. The test helps drive curriculum, and students have been taking practice tests throughout the year.

The MAP assesses students at various grade levels in communications arts and mathematics, and gives parents and educators a means to compare students across districts. State and federal agencies in turn use it to grade schools, with implications for accreditation at the state level and for compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act at the federal level.

“It’s a high-stakes test,” Joplin Superintendent C.J. Huff said.


It is high-stakes in terms of the school's point of view since it can affect accreditation and compliance for NCLB; and how do the schools respond to this pressure? The Globe reports:

West Central Elementary School offered a weekly “boot camp” for its students over several weeks, said Denise Legore, the school’s principal. The students, dubbed “privates,” are led by community members and mentors with either the rank of “sergeant” or “lieutenant.” The children sang in marching cadences and this year wore dog tags. They negotiated an obstacle course where they have to answer a question in order to move on.

I thought this was a bit odd. Children singing in marching cadences to prepare for a test? It apparently doesn't happen just in Joplin. It's happening in the Ferguson-Florissant School District as well. I received this question from a mother of a third grader in that district about the "Map Walk" sheet sent home with her child (you can find the words to the "Map Walk" at the beginning of this article):

Someone please read this and tell me what the heck is going on at my child's school. What kind of grammar is this? And why are they teaching my child this? ....and what does "crunk" mean?


I was stunned at the sheet she referenced. There were misspellings, incorrect grammar, and rap slang being taught to students. I looked up the definition of "crunk"in an online rap dictionary:

adjective

crunk

1. To have a good time. Long as everybody get crunk in the drop -- Lil Bow Wow (Bounce with me [2000].
2. To get crazy drunk. Originally, this term comes from the words crazy and funk. As opposed to popular opinion, crunk has had no relation to being coked up and drunk until recently. Because if its similarity of terminal sound with the word drunk many rappers have used it in reference with being crazy and under the influence. This and the intrinsical association with hard partying has brought about its association with alcohol.
3. A style of music most commonly made by rap artists from the southern states, aka the Dirty South. Some crunk artists (or groups) are Lil' Jon, Pitbull, Lil' Scrappy, Trillville, and David Bannerand also [[[lil'joe the prince of Crunk]] n N b o Crunkmusic
4. At a high level, as in volume: "He got the speakers in the trunk with the bass on crunk." (Mos Def, from "Mr. Nigga" on Black on Both Sides).

I doubt many mothers of 3rd graders would be elated to see this come home in their child's backpack. This mom has contacted the superintendent and the State Board of Education to determine if this is accepted educational practice.

I wonder how "boot camp" for MAP preparation is received in Joplin. I hope the cadences used there (I'm still trying to come to terms with this technique) are grammatically correct and don't teach 3rd graders street jive (courtesy of the Urban Dictionary). Maybe that concerned mother should have her student do the "Map Walk" right out of the classroom when testing time comes around.