Advocacy of universal pre-K is not inherently an ideological issue. It can be supported enthusiastically by liberals and conservatives and, indeed, that is the case. I have no doubt that Mayor de Blasio’s strong campaign to expand preschool is sincere. It is also enveloped in ideology, and that is unfortunate, even harmful and dangerous. He is, I believe, the most ideological mayor New York has seen in quite a while. Ideology is not a formula for good government, if only because good government is predicated on a constant flow of practical decisions.
Just three months into his term, we have seen Mayor de Blasio’s instinct for class warfare. He often sounds like a candidate for office, as in his constant attacks against Mayor Bloomberg, rather than the mayor of a city of more than eight million. May we ask or hope for more civility from City Hall?
Also, Mayor de Blasio’s justified preschool agenda ought not be linked to a counter-attack against charter schools. There are good reasons to question whether certain charters are doing a good job and are deserving of continued public support. This is an issue that needs to be raised entirely apart from the contemplated expansion of preschool.
As debate has busted out all over regarding educational reform, a stealth vast pseudo-educational system has arisen alongside the conventional configuration of schools that are peopled by teachers and students.
There is in this country a multi-billion dollar array of projects, activities, institutions and organizations that somehow appropriated the title “education,” though there are no classrooms or teachers or students. This pseudo-educational world continues to grow, even as many states have cut back on school funding. We are treated almost daily to a stream of messages emitted by persons who have no responsibility for the education of a single child telling those who administer schools and who stand in front of children in classrooms why they are not doing a good enough job.
With each passing year, there is an increase in the size and influence of the already huge pseudo-education infrastructure. Sadly, there is scant prospect that the trend will be curtailed. To the contrary, the prospect is that pseudo-educators in their comfortable offices and with their comfortable expense accounts will attract even greater financial support and will find additional ways to criticize those who are in real education.
Admittedly, the sins of pseudo-educators should not be a factor in evaluating preschool, even though much of the advocacy for preschool comes from that source. We need to ask whether Mayor de Blasio and those who are in his corner are on the right track or whether we are once more being sold a bill of goods that ultimately will result in high costs and a high level of disappointment.
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I wonder whether in answering this question there is anything to be learned from Jewish day schools. They are strong proponents of preschool, viewing the 4-5 year old cohort as in need of religious socialization and early introduction to Jewish literacy. This is especially true of fervently Orthodox schools, with four-year olds treated as if they are in a regular classroom and not in something that resembles a playgroup. Even among day school parents who are not Orthodox, there is a strong pro-preschool climate of opinion, perhaps shaped in large measure by financial circumstances because both parents work.
The emphasis Jews place on preschool should provide a measure of justification for the expansion of preschool among the general population. What’s good for us certainly should be good for others. Yet there may be another way of looking at our experience. It is evident – and not disputed – that there is little enduring Judaic benefit to merely having a Jewish child in a Jewish preschool setting or even in the early grades. As an illustration, the intermarriage rate for those who were in a Jewish preschool setting and had little other meaningful religious reinforcement is about the same as it is for Jews who had no early childhood Jewish experience. What makes a difference is for the child to be in a Jewish school for at least nearly all of the elementary school grades; otherwise, both the Jewish education and the Judaic benefits that may have seemed apparent when the child was in a Jewish school setting are quickly and permanently lost.
