Raising the standard of Early Childhood Education could bridge the socioeconomical gap.
Something I have had a passion for for a long time is Early Childhood Education. My love of working with children began when I was very young. I always enjoyed being around my younger siblings and my nieces and nephews. When I was ready to leave school, and I didn’t know what to do with my life (although I knew I wanted to go to college) my Father persuaded me to go to work with children as it was something he could see that I already loved and had a gift for. From there I went onto study my Bachelors in Early Childhood studies. This is where my passion for how young children learn began. Having done much of my research in the UK, I then came to America and the interest deepened. I started to realise very fast that the more affluent families seemed to have more access to quality Early childhood Education for children (pre school). The underprivilaged families however either do not have their children in preschool at all, or the quality of the centers is not at the standard of those at a private level. Observing at a social level, I began to see where there is a social divide not only in the academics of children but in the economy itself. Children in underprivilaged families may well have the academic ability to achieve well in school, but more often than not, they are not recieving the same quality of Early Childhood Education. Hence putting them at a disadvantage. If we can reach the children at a younger age they will have a higher chance of succeeding in later life. “By age 3, kids from low-income families were doing as well as those from high-income families,” said Aaron Sojourner, a professor of labor economics at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and one of the study’s authors. “So you close the gap by age 3.” (Beth Hawkins (2014).
Which brings me to my research: in a recent study at Columbia University, there is a link between Quality Early Childhood Education and the effects growing up in poverty can have on young children.
“Specifically, some have argued that high quality education and care programs that begin early in life have the potential to close gaps in school achievement that often exist between poor and minority children and their middle-class, mostly White, counterparts (Magnuson & Waldfogel, 2005)” (Anna. D. Johnson,(2014).
Anna (2014) goes on to say that
“Researchers have posited that the proportion of kindergarteners who enter school without basic literacy and numeracy skills could be substantially higher in poor and minority communities than that of children from middle-class backgrounds (Brooks-Gunn, 2003).”
Annas’ research suggests that for children growing up in the United states below the poverty line, when given the opportunity for quality Early Childhood care and intervention, their chances for school readiness and subsequent chances for school success, financial independence, and social stability are increased. (Anna.D.Johnson (2014).
Labor economist Aaron Sojourner (2014) supports this in his statement, “Status at 18 can be well predicted by status at age 5, so we keep going back earlier and there is compelling environmental and quasi-experimental evidence that early life conditions have large lasting impacts of life course.” (Beth Hawkins, 2014)
My conclusion is that we really need to raise the standards of the preschool environment to meet the needs of ALL children. There should be an equal opportunity for children in underpriviliged families to recieve a quality Preschool Education. I also feel that parents need to be educated as to what they could be doing at home with their children to prepare them for school.
Now is the time more than ever. “The shift to a majority-poor student population means that in public schools, a growing number of children start kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever, catch up. They are less likely to have support at home, are less frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school, and are more likely to drop out and never attend college.” (Lyndsey Layton, 2015).
References:
Anna.D.Johnson (2014) The effects of Early Childhood Education of children in Poverty. http://www.tc.columbia.edu/sie/journal/Volume_4/Johnson_Website%20Final.pdf
Beth Hawkins (2014) New Study: High- Quality Pre-schools for poor kids under 3 would eliminate the achievement gap. https://www.minnpost.com/learning-curve/2014/01/new-study-high-quality-preschool-poor-kids-under-3-would-eliminate-achievemen
Lindsey Layton (2015) Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html
Next Blog: Are we doing enough to empower the youth living in underprivileged areas?
