The Pulse – Congress Ignores Obvious Problems with State-Run Preschool at Hearing

Share this...

Facebook

Twitter

Dr. Effrem’s latest article at the National Pulse discusses a recent U.S. House education subcommittee hearing on preschool that except for one courageous congressman, Rep. Thomas Garrett (R-VA), completely failed to mention the utter failure of Head Start and other government preschool programs. Here is an excerpt:

The Failure of Head Start and State-Run Preschool

The 2012 follow-up study that followed the same children as in the 2010 study through third grade instead of stopping at first grade also found no benefits of Head Start after the preschool year(s):

Looking across the full study period, from the beginning of Head Start through 3rd grade, the evidence is clear that access to Head Start improved children’s preschool outcomes across developmental domains, but had few impacts on children in kindergarten through 3rd grade.

The 2010 and 2012 studies are just two examples of literally hundreds of government studies showing the failure and/or harm of Head Start. This sampling dates back to 1985 and includes a government review of 600 studies from 1997 that could not find any benefit of the program, saying:

The body of research on current Head Start is insufficient to draw conclusions about the impact of the national program.

This of course does not even begin to discuss the numerous studies showing ineffectiveness, fade-out of beneficial effects, and actual academic and emotional harm of preschool programs other than Head Start. And despite what Rep. Polis says, quality of the Head Start program makes no difference.  The 2014 study of Head Start examined the effect of quality on program outcomes and found:

We find little evidence that quality matters to impacts of Head Start using the available quality measures from the study across two age cohorts, three quality dimensions, five outcomes, and several years. The one exception is that for 3-year-old program entrants low exposure quality, defined as less exposure to academic activities during Head Start participation, produces better behavioral impacts in the short-run than more exposure to academic activities. Even so, there is no indication that either high quality Head Start or low quality Head Start in any dimension leads to program impacts lasting into third grade. [Emphasis added]

It is also important to remember that concept of “quality preschool” leading to better outcomes is only a myth:

The hearing witness from Minnesota, Ericca Maas, represents the organization that has been pushing that state’s scholarship program based on the ratings of the QRIS for several years. To receive a 3- or 4-star rating in Minnesota system, required for parents to use state scholarship funds with that provider, the provider must use Minnesota’s early childhood content standards that until this year discussed gender identity and environmentalism with children as young as three. The new version still discusses the environment and adds in family structure diversity under the still subjective and controversial social emotional category.

It is interesting to note that even though Minnesota’s statist model to impose these controversial standards on private, religious, and family childcare programs is lauded by pre-K proponents as a model for the feds to fund and for states to emulate, when asked during the hearing if the program has closed achievement gaps, Maas admitted unequivocally that it had not (1:17:08).

As Congress works on the budget, it is important to remind your representative and senators about the abject failure of government pre-K and home visiting programs and in the current $20 trillion debt, increasing the funding for Head Start, as is currently being proposed in the House appropriations bill makes very little sense.

Read the full article here.

Dr. Effrem to Speak at Child Protection League SEL Event

Share this...

Facebook

Twitter

Education Liberty Watch is pleased to announce co-sponsorship of the Child Protection League event titled “Hijacking Their Minds: How ‘safe schools’ and social emotional learning (SEL) indoctrinate our children” on Tuesday, September 26th, 2017 in Bloomington, Minnesota.

The event will feature two national speakers – Dr. Karen Effrem and Stella Morabito:

A flyer with the event details is available. We strongly encourage our Minnesota supporters to attend this event and all of our friends to support this important cause.

National Parent Coalition Letter to Congress on Student Data & Psychological Privacy

Share this...

Facebook

Twitter

Education Liberty Watch had the honor of helping to lead a national parent coalition of national, state and local organizations concerned about student data and psychological privacy after a recent U.S. House hearing on the topic. The following email was sent to the Education and Workforce Committee:

Dear Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Scott, Chairman Rokita, and Ranking Member Polis and the Education & Workforce Committee,

Thank you for holding the recent hearing on federal education research & privacy. Please see the following link to a national parent coalition letter containing the views, concerns and recommendations regarding student data and psychological privacy after the June 28th hearing of the Subcommittee on on Preschool, Elementary, and Secondary Education titled “Exploring Opportunities to Strengthen Education Research While Protecting Student Privacy.”

http://edlibertywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Final-Letter-to-Committee-chairs-7-17-.pdf

This coalition includes 9 national organizations and 72 state and local organizations from 33 states, representing hundreds of thousands of concerned parents and citizens across the nation.

We respectfully, but strongly urge you to not include social emotional research in any reauthorization of ESRA, rescind the Obama administration regulatory gutting of privacy in FERPA as that is reauthorized, and enforce PPRA to prohibit psychological screening & profiling in any kind of assessments, not just surveys.

I will be happy to forward any responses from you to the coalition.

Thank you for your attention to this critical education issue.

Best regards,

Karen R. Effrem, MD

President, Education Liberty Watch

Executive Director, The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition

Education Liberty Watch President, Dr. Karen Effrem made the following statement to the media:

“It is extremely important for Congress to hear from parents of students whose lives are affected by the womb-to-tomb data collection and psychological profiling,” Parent concern about the social emotional learning (SEL) research and other data collection in the Strengthening Education Through Research Act (SETRA) as well as the regulatory weakening of FERPA were extremely important in keeping SETRA from passing in the last session of Congress. All of the data breaches and the push for SEL teaching, assessment, and research without consent has made parents more concerned, not less, about their students’ privacy, and more determined than ever to protect it in this next session of Congress.”

Please contact your members of Congress about this letter and demand protection of student privacy!

The National Pulse: Mother Denied Parental Rights over Transgender Teen Appeals Court Ruling

Share this...

Facebook

Twitter

Last month, Dr. Effrem described the bizarre and dangerous Minnesota federal court decision that “emancipated” a minor child from his mother, thereby denying her inherent parental right to direct the academic, medical, and other aspects of the care and upbringing of her own son — all without any of the due process normally involved in such situations.

The story continues:

According to the Minnesota Child Protection League (CPL), an organization which has been supporting Ms. Calgaro’s efforts, attorneys for the district made the situation painfully worse:

Attorneys for the school district went on to state that, since Calgaro had filed a lawsuit to assert her parental rights, her request should be denied in order to protect her son from “further harm.”  Consider that. The school administration is empowered to decide that Calgaro is harmful to her son because she challenged the violation of her parental rights in court.

Continue to read!