Debating Universal vs. Targeted Preschool: Part II

This week, researchers Steven Barnett and Bruce Fuller have been debating the merits of universal versus targeted preschool on the Education Sector website. Yesterday, I explained why I find Steven Barnett's case for universal preschool compelling--but also why I still have some questions. Today I'll explain my reaction to Fuller's arguments for targeting investments.

I should start out by noting that I'm inclined to be sympathetic to Fuller's arguments here. In general, I tend to believe new public spending on education should be targeted to the most needy youngsters. But I'm perplexed by Fuller's assertion that advocates for universal preschool believe "that pre-K should become just another grade level in the public schools" or that "early development is about getting three and four year-olds ready for standardized testing." Fuller seems to think universal preschool advocates want to create a standardized, one-size-fits-all program of school-like environments for preschoolers that ignore critical aspects of children's social and emotional development in favor of test prep.

I'm at a loss to understand where Fuller gets this idea. I've spent a decent amount of time around universal preschool people and read a lot of what they produce, and I've never gotten the sense these were their beliefs or objectives. Preschool people tend to emphasize that preschools should not look like elementary schools or even kindergartens. The work and resources produced by advocacy organizations such as Pre-K Now and Barnett's own research group NIEER emphasize the importance of children's social and emotional development in preschool. Many states have made community-based and other non-school providers a key part of their preschool systems.

If I thought universal preschool was part of some plot to standardize early childhood and eliminate diverse, comunity-based providers, I'd probably oppose it, too. I do have concerns about how Prop. 82 would govern preschool in California, and whether or not it would be equitable to community-based and private providers (and the families that prefer them). But these are policy and program design questions--not issues inherent in the idea of universal preschool.

One of the reasons I do find the idea of universal preschool appealing is the opportunity it would provide to build a new kind of educational system outside of the existing one. I certainly don't think that publicly-funded preschool should look like just another, earlier, year of the existing public schools. But I think that practical realities and the desires of parents will ensure that it can't in most places. What's exciting to me about the preschool movement is the opportunity it creates to build a new early education system in many places: A system that incorporates diverse providers, a system that uses new governance and accountability models to oversee these providers and hold them accountable in ways that are more holistic and developmentally appropriate than plain old pencil-and-paper-standardized tests (because you CAN'T use those with kids this little). I think a system like this would look a lot like the kind of educational system I'd like to see available to older kids, as well, and making such a system parents' first encounter with publicly-funded education would help put pressure on the existing K-12 system to change. Now, creating a system like that is hard, and a lot of places aren't going to do it with the limited resources and ad hoc nature of their preschool programs, but I still think it's an interesting prospect.

Fuller makes a lot of other worthwhile points in his piece: Some of the evidence on preschool has been overhyped; just like in K-12 teaching, we don't know as much as we'd like to think about the characteristics that make preschool teachers effective; and community providers are a critical piece of the early childhood infrastructure that need to be maintained and integrated into any publicly-funded system. His piece is well worth reading.

So, where did I come down after this debate? I'm positive but still ambivalent about the idea of universal preschool, because I think it needs to be weighed against alternative, more-targeted investments. I also wonder if there's not a smart design way to achieve some of the benefits Barnett argues come from universal preschool while keeping some of the cost burden on more affluent parents, rather than the public. And I do think the design and policy details of specific programs and proposals matter a lot.