Stanford Report, April 26, 2006

In Print and On the Air

Approval of Proposition 82—the Preschool for All Act—in June would be only the first step in a challenging process of providing free preschool for all California 4-year-olds, according to early childhood experts gathered at Stanford last Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported April 23. The state would also have to grapple with training thousands of teachers required to earn bachelor's degrees, making quality preschool accessible to low-income children and implementing statewide learning standards. "Getting the funding is the first step. There's so much we have to learn and figure out in expanding quality preschool," said School of Education Dean DEBORAH STIPEK. "We absolutely need to expand access to quality preschool in California, whether or not Prop. 82 passes." According to a recent Field Poll, the ballot measure maintains a slight lead but support has been dropping. According to a study by Stipek, graduate student NICOLLE GARZA and Hedy Chang, an independent consultant, up to 65 percent of California's 4-year-olds attend preschool, though the quality of schools varies greatly. While 80 percent of children from high-income families attend preschool, only 49 percent of the lowest income children do. Latinos have the lowest participation, at 37 percent, compared with 58 percent of white children, the study found. Symposium participants expressed concern over Prop. 82's requirement that lead teachers earn a bachelor's degree. Less than a third of teachers in programs now funded by the state hold such a degree, and only 17 percent of California colleges with early childhood teacher programs offer a BA. Participants also emphasized the importance of age-appropriate learning and of teaching early childhood educators how to adapt to standards to make learning fun. "Most of the schools I've seen are play all the time, or they've been drill and kill," Stipek was reported as saying. "Play versus academics is a false dichotomy."

ABBAS MILANI, co-director of the Hoover Institution's Iran Democracy Project, was reported as saying in the St. Petersburg Times April 16 that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent boast that his country "has joined the club of nuclear nations" had two main goals: to boost internal support for his regime and to convince outsiders that Iran is so far along in uranium enrichment that there is no point in trying to stop it. "It was partly to build national pride and show Iranians the regime is standing up to the West, but it was also intended for the world in the sense that the enrichment game is a fait accompli," Milani said. "I don't think it is a fait accompli—I think if the Chinese and Russians join the Europeans and U.S. in a very firm position, the regime will have to reconsider."