There's a lot to this thread, so I will have to come back to it and address some issues with education further, as the discussion fleshes out. But one thing caught my eye in the OP:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ASU2003
0-5, Parents need to teach kids the basic skills and early education things. Let the kids explore and teach them good behavior and such. Education should be fun and not work. Counting, alphabet and basic reading and such.
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The problem with this statement is bolded. That's right--parents. The problem is parents don't have time to provide all the social and educational intervention a child under the age of 5 requires. Only 10% of families in the United States are the "traditional" family, with a stay-at-home mom. Most families have two working parents or a working single parent. Where do those children go while their parents work? Childcare.
Parents also don't have a lot of time after they are done working to deal with all that it takes to give a child a great foundation; household chores must be done. Also, it's often difficult for parents to critically reflect on raising their child; they're in the trenches, dealing with the day-to-day. Parents aren't professionals, and may not have any idea as to how to go about teaching a child to read. Obviously, a lot of parents do the best they can with what they have, but I think Obama is attempting to acknowledge the fact that most American children under the age of 5 spend their days in childcare.
So what do we do about that? How do we guarantee children a great foundation when it's not entirely in control of the parents to do so? Well, we can start by expanding funding to programs like Head Start, so that low-income children have access to preschool. We can better our certification standards for existing childcare. We can increase the availability of education and training for those who would like to go into the fields of early childhood education; evidence shows that childcare workers with more education provide better care, and we know that children who receive better quality care have better long-term educational outcomes. We can make sure that parents have access to community parenting education resources so that they can optimize the time they do spend with their children.
I'll be back, ASU. There's a lot to address. Heck, I think some of these issues are probably worthy of their own threads.