Musical chairs in Boston's West Zone
By adamg - 1/9/10 - 12:43 pm
Geeky Mama uses BPS stats to figure out that last year, there were, at best, between 0.76 and 0.81 seats per applicant available for KI (pre-school) classes in West Roxbury, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain:
... The message to BPS – please add more K1 seats, soon.
Comments
I'm sure we are all thrilled
I'm sure we are all thrilled to be paying for what is essentially daycare for young children.
Since when have children really needed to attend school prior to kindergarten? We didn't have early education decades ago and yet had measurably better education by today's standards. What's with that?
The sooner the better
Because they start teaching them to read in K-2.
The "being in school" skills of the kids coming into K-2 are all over the map, mostly correlated to what kind of environment they were in before. Can they zip up their own jackets? Take turns? Wait when another child is speaking? Deal with conflicts appropriately? Ask to go to the bathroom before it's too late? Hold a book the right way up? Know their letters and numbers? The longer it takes to learn all those things, the less time for academics. If you get the routine and the basics covered in K-1, every child benefits when they get to K-2.
There are all kinds of ways to get these skills before K-2. But some parents/guardians don't have the money or the clue or the persistence or language skills or time to make sure their child acquires them. With not enough K-1 slots, even for the parents who have clue and persistence, how do you reach the kids you could really use the K-1 prep for K-2?