Changing the Early Education Dialogue
Remarks by Charles Weis, Ph. D.
Early Learning Advocacy Day
Sacramento 6/15/10
Thank you for coming today, and thank you for having me.
We’ve come a long way in our advocacy for universally accessible high quality preschool. But why, in the year 2010, do we still not have it?
My theory is: It’s the language we use.
I’ve been interested in preschool a very long time—for 20-plus years. Early on in my career, my wife and I opened a preschool out of necessity. My son was 2 years old, and there was no full day preschool in the town in which we lived and worked. But we didn’t want him at home all day watching TV with a babysitter.
That experience taught me how difficult it is for young families to afford high quality preschool.
Ultimately, we found we couldn’t afford to keep operating the school. So we had to shut it down.
Years later, in 1997, I co-chaired the Universal Preschool Task Force Report for State Superintendent Delaine Eastin, who was then—and remains today--a visionary for preschool. She used to say: “Any day now, we will have universal preschool.”
I remember that we heard the same message from President Clinton, when he conducted a summit on early learning summit. Any day now, we will have universal preschool.
Then there was the School Readiness Taskforce of the Education Master Plan. We updated our plan because State Senator Dede Alpert assured us, Any day now, funding will be there for universal preschool.
Then Proposition 10 passed, and First 5 was created. And the pre-K Foundations were created. And the California Preschool Instructional Network was created. So, we thought, surely… any day now….
Well, then we had a setback in 2006, when Proposition 82 failed at the polls.
But the Superintendent’s P-16 Council report called for preschool. So did the Governor’s Committee on Educational Excellence. And over the years, Head Start and Early Head Start kept growing. So we still were thinking, Any day now.
And yet, here we are today—in 2010--still talking about Advocacy for Early Learning. We’re still hearing, Any day now. So many of the issues we face now are the same as those we faced back then.
Which leads me back to my premise: I believe that, because of the language we use, we have hindered ourselves by not creating a big enough tent for us to gather in our cause.
We have to change that language. And the time for change is right now.
Let me tell you how I’ve come to this conclusion.
I already mentioned the Preschool Task Force, the master plan, the propositions and First 5. These laid the foundation and educated the public about the power of preschool. Nearly everyone now knows that high-quality early learning…
• enables children to develop the skills they need to succeed in school…
• helps to reduce the readiness gap, which turns into the achievement gap…
• correlates to higher levels of education, and ultimately employment…
• …and lowers the level of incarceration
Also, we all know now that…
• children begin learning at birth and even before birth…
• there’s a strong need for quality formal early education opportunities…
• and most families cannot afford it alone. It requires some form of governmental involvement and funding
In spite of all this, I would suggest that most people do not think preschool is as important as K-12 education or higher education. I base that conclusion on that lack of hue and cry for publicly funded preschool for all children.
Some will say: There’s just not enough money in the state’s budget. California’s economy is not strong enough to afford preschool. So, you’ll hear: “Given the present budget situation in California, how can we realistically expect the state to help finance expanded pre-school?”
The reality is that the state’s economy will recover. It always does. And even though things are bad now, they will improve someday, in the not too distant future.
We need to be ready for that day. When it comes, we need to be prepared and poised to act.
I can’t stress the point enough…because I don’t think we are prepared or poised right now. We do not have the entire education community advocating for formal early learning opportunities for all children. The politics of scarcity have caused the education community to defer the conversation about the need for early learning.
And again, I think the main reason is the language we use. The preschool community has not done a good job of messaging our work and our vision.
I believe that the lack of universal advocacy is not about the economy, or failure to understand that preschool is essential today, more so than ever before. It is because of language. I believe that the word “preschool” sends a subtle suggestion that it’s something that takes place before real school, which starts at kindergarten. Like afterschool and summer school, “preschool” must not really be necessary. It’s an extra…an introduction…it doesn’t sound like the real thing.
Surveys tell us that there is very strong public sentiment to support public education. We see it in poll after poll. And we see it in the individual bond and parcel tax measures that keep passing all over the state, despite the supermajority obstacles.
But the support for PREschool is much less firm. And I’m convinced a major reason is in the terminology. So I believe that we need to stop talking about the importance of “quality preschool,” and start talking about the importance of Formal Early Learning… or Expanded Kindergarten… or Early K… or Early Care and Education…. or anything else BUT pre-school.
We do not want to be pre-anything. We need to be The Thing. We need to be seen as real school… real education… because we are!
Even among the early education community, we fight about what we call our work. It has got to stop. The smorgasbord of terms reflects a lack of unity even among us. We must join the big tent of early learning advocates and invite the K-16 education community to join us.
The people here in Sacramento know how you get things done: Divide and Conquer. That’s exactly what has happened to the education community. We have allowed ourselves to be divided. We have been maneuvered into acting as separate entities:
• preschool (OK, Early Learning)
• K-12
• community colleges
• colleges / universities
We work in these separate silos. And instead of working together, in some cases, we have been working against one another. Competing for attention, competing for funding, competing for public support.
We need to be cooperating, not competing.
We need to change the dialogue about what we call Early Learning …and we need to change the dialogue about our approach to education, so that it reflects the cradle-to-career continuum. Each stage is as critical as the other.
Learning is a lifelong process. Those of us in education need to treat it—and each other—appropriately.
We need to change our language, change the conversation, and create the big tent of education that has space for cradle-to-career support for high quality public education. When the economy has revived, let’s be ready to create universally accessible, high-quality early-learning opportunities for all children. It could happen ANY DAY NOW!
Date last updated: June 30, 2010