How did you decide what preschool to send your kid(s) to?

Preschool teaches you basic shit. Language, math, the foundations for everything to come. It is important, but people put too much importance on it imo. I remember reading a study a while back that said yes, kids in these omgawesome preschools do excel and are more advanced than other kids. Then, they go to public school, and everyone pretty much evens out. The TL;DR of the story seemed to be that unless you plan to pay for private schooling forever, you're flushing your money down the toilet. Or even worse, pressuring your kid to excel out of your own vanity. Everyone loves to talk about how advanced their kids are or whatever, pride is a good thing and probably good for the kid too. But some people take that shit too far.

I wouldn't call it that, I don't know what I would call it though. Things that cost more should be better, you'd be upset if they weren't.

Obtenor_sl said:

Honest question here, someone correct me if I'm dead wrong given that I have no kids:

Isn't throwing out a bunch of money on preschool... crazy? In either preeschool young kids will play with play-dough, go to music class, draw/paint. It's like paying 300$ for little shoes that they'll wear for 2 months tops before they grow out of them.

Isn't it wiser to invest in higher level ed? like a nice high school/college/university? I don't remember SHIT from pre-school. I mean if you're loaded then ignore my post, but people on budgets, I would go for the 1/2 priced one that was good.

Click to expand...

No. It is the exact opposite. The biggest effect you will have on your childs education actually starts early with the lessons you set in early. Even being able to read a few letters and count to four places your kids at a massive advantage over the norm. Obviously not all kids are alike and some kids can go through shit and still be gems but on average the more you invest early on the bigger the payoff later.

On topic the way we picked our preschool was to spend a half day at each one seeing the kids interacting with the teachers at different levels. My wife was most focused on how it looked, clean, nice teachers, mixed demographics etc. I was most focused on teacher turn over, were the students literate,how well the could count, read, recognize stuff etc. We pay roughly $20,000 a year to put two kids in pre-school (second one doesn't start till next October then it'll be that high) and it really put us off at first. But after a year of it with our oldest daughter and the MASSIVE improvements we saw in her we just said fuck it and paid whatever they asked. If you have a stay at home mom or someone like that then you can probably get the same effect but we didn't have that option.

As an FYI our daughter in a year went from not being able to so much as recognize her name or even what letters were to counting to 20, writing her name and recognizing it where ever she saw it, knowing nearly the full alphabet, knowing her colors, shapes, and dozens of animals. Not to mention how much her speech has improved in that time. She will be turning 4 in December and will have had 2 years in pre-school at that point.

chaos_sl said:

Preschool teaches you basic shit. Language, math, the foundations for everything to come. It is important, but people put too much importance on it imo. I remember reading a study a while back that said yes, kids in these omgawesome preschools do excel and are more advanced than other kids. Then, they go to public school, and everyone pretty much evens out. The TL;DR of the story seemed to be that unless you plan to pay for private schooling forever, you're flushing your money down the toilet. Or even worse, pressuring your kid to excel out of your own vanity. Everyone loves to talk about how advanced their kids are or whatever, pride is a good thing and probably good for the kid too. But some people take that shit too far.

Click to expand...

There are a lot of studies that show the effectiveness of Pre-school and a few studies that don't. I wonder if what you read was a case selection bias. I have 6+ teachers in my extended family which could bias me but then I can google it to and the results are there.

preschool long term effects studies -Google
http://nieer.org/resources/research/...ingEffects.pdf

Well-designed preschool education programs produce long-term
improvements in school success, including higher achievement test
scores, lower rates of grade repetition and special education, and higher
educational attainment. Some preschool programs are also associated
with reduced delinquency and crime in childhood and adulthood.

Click to expand...

Long-term effects of an early childhood intervention on educational... - PubMed - NCBI

CONCLUSIONS:
Participation in an established early childhood intervention for low-income children was associated with better educational and social outcomes up to age 20 years. These findings are among the strongest evidence that established programs administered through public schools can promote children's long-term success.

Click to expand...

http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/file...on%20FINAL.pdf

Those are just a few high end sources but there is a LOT of material on the subject.


Relevant @ 46 seconds

Obtenor_sl said:

Honest question here, someone correct me if I'm dead wrong given that I have no kids:

Isn't throwing out a bunch of money on preschool... crazy? In either preeschool young kids will play with play-dough, go to music class, draw/paint. It's like paying 300$ for little shoes that they'll wear for 2 months tops before they grow out of them.

Isn't it wiser to invest in higher level ed? like a nice high school/college/university? I don't remember SHIT from pre-school. I mean if you're loaded then ignore my post, but people on budgets, I would go for the 1/2 priced one that was good.

Click to expand...

Pre-school serves no purpose other than to be daycare for toddlers. It's not going to make your kid smarter. Being a non-dumbshit subrubfag parent will make your kid smarter.

Selix_sl said:

There are a lot of studies that show the effectiveness of Pre-school and a few studies that don't. I wonder if what you read was a case selection bias. I have 6+ teachers in my extended family which could bias me but then I can google it to and the results are there.

preschool long term effects studies -Google
http://nieer.org/resources/research/...ingEffects.pdf

Long-term effects of an early childhood intervention on educational... - PubMed - NCBI


http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/file...on%20FINAL.pdf

Those are just a few high end sources but there is a LOT of material on the subject.

Click to expand...

Do those studies take in parents who aren't fucking morons? The vast majority of low income (Read: Minorities and Anyone in the deep south) parents are close to mentally retarded.

Vinen_sl said:

Do those studies take in parents who aren't fucking morons? The vast majority of low income (Read: Minorities and Anyone in the deep south) parents are close to mentally retarded.

Click to expand...

Yes actually many do factor in low income and disadvantaged children. They often see much larger gains then the ones your non-disadvantage children gain with Preschool. All three sources I linked above included those in their studies. Comparing effects of preschool against low-income/disadvantaged vs. Middle Income vs. Well educated families is actually a common part of these studies and without it would invalidate much of what these studies hope to accomplish.

The strongest evidence suggests that economically disadvantaged
children reap long-term benefits from preschool. However, children
from all other socioeconomic backgrounds have been found to benefit
as well.

Click to expand...

http://nieer.org/resources/research/...ingEffects.pdf

Selix_sl said:

There are a lot of studies that show the effectiveness of Pre-school and a few studies that don't. I wonder if what you read was a case selection bias. I have 6+ teachers in my extended family which could bias me but then I can google it to and the results are there.

preschool long term effects studies -Google
http://nieer.org/resources/research/...ingEffects.pdf

Long-term effects of an early childhood intervention on educational... - PubMed - NCBI


http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/file...on%20FINAL.pdf

Those are just a few high end sources but there is a LOT of material on the subject.


Relevant

Click to expand...

How lasting are the benefits of preschool? - The Washington Post

The whole "fadeout" thing is a well documented idea from several studies. And it makes sense to me, too. You take your most advanced kid in preschool, stick him in kindergarten with everyone else, he doesn't bring everyone else up, they bring him down. Relatively.

chaos_sl said:

How lasting are the benefits of preschool? - The Washington Post

The whole "fadeout" thing is a well documented idea from several studies. And it makes sense to me, too. You take your most advanced kid in preschool, stick him in kindergarten with everyone else, he doesn't bring everyone else up, they bring him down. Relatively.

Click to expand...

I'm just copy pasta from the comments but context is important.

Agreed. However, if you read the actual studies (I believe there's a link in the above article), you'll find that the researchers DID compare social/economic outcomes as well. They found that by the end of high school, there were effectively no purely-academic improvements from kids who went to preschool. But they WERE more likely to graduate, less likely to be pregnant or in trouble with the law, and more likely to earn more over a lifetime than those kids who didn't have decent preschool. The differences were biggest for those groups you'd expect: the poor and often minorities who don't have the time/skills/care to stay home with their little kids if preschool isn't available.

So yeah, as you'd expect, offering preschool helps most kids in the long run. But, since it's not really as much an academic training as a social one, the improvements are more social than academic, too. This article merely refused to focus on those findings.

Click to expand...

and

I found this to be a misleading article after digging into the links.It highlighted the negative questions raised in the panel discussion at the Cato Institute without going into the positive conclusions in the research. It leaves the impression that the questions raised were the conclusions; in particular for the meta study by Deborah A. Phillips and colleagues. Here are the conclusions of that study.
------
Large-scale public preschool programs can have substantial impacts on children's
early learning.

There are long-term effects on important societal outcomes such as high-school graduation, years of education completed, earnings, and reduced crime and teen pregnancy, even after test-score effects decline to zero

Quality preschool education is a profitable investment. Available benefit-cost estimates ,,, range from three to seven dollars saved for every dollar spent.

The evidence is clear that middle-class children can benefit substantially, and that benefits outweigh costs for children from middle-income as well as those from low-income families. However, children from low-income backgrounds benefit more.

Click to expand...

Yeah, i did read some Vanderbilt study about the non-academic advantages, but I assumed we were talking about academic here. You even mentioned reading and counting, but really those are things a kid will learn if you park them in front of an ipad for a few hours a day too. Preschool is all about social development, learning to be a part of a system, shit like that. But, and this is just me, I don't think necessarily going to preschool is the thing that provides those advantages, more likely it is the social benefits of being in a family where preschool is encouraged and the parent/guardians are involved in the child's life. That is coming straight from my ass, though.

Having involved parents is absolutely the biggest factor in child development above and beyond all else. Preschool is just extra. Xarpolis the fact that you even bothered to ask the question probably puts you in a different category then that the average parent. I put my children Preschool because I can afford it and because I have racial and gender based reasons for giving my children every possible advantage I feel I can afford them. That isn't the same for everyone and if I could have raised them with their grandparents during the day instead then I probably would have.

I don't know man, my brother and I went to a shitty pre-school but my mom would make us do extra-curricular activities that weren't even required from school; so, by 4 I was already pretty much reading fluently, by 6 I was speaking english as a second language also fluently (spanish is first language) and by 10 I could read and speak french to a considerable level.

I grew up fine, got an engineering degree and just finished a masters; my point is, there are plenty of rich spoiled dipshits that send their kids to super expensive school but never really work with the kids to do anything so is money down the drain.

Likewise, my pre-k was like public (in south america) where everything was very deficient, but I knew as soon as I stepped out at home my mom would give me some homework: reading, doing numbers, playing the flute (fucking hated it, on the plus side I'm gay and I give amazing head). She would refuse for us to watch cartoons in spanish and forced us to watch cartoons in english.

In all, if you are serious about being there for your small kids so they have a future, spend time with them, give them some extra assignment, something they might like or might be different. Make them watch cartoons in Telemundo (not Dora, actual dubbed cartoons in spanish).

I'm high.

Selix_sl said:

Having involved parents is absolutely the biggest factor in child development above and beyond all else. Preschool is just extra. Xarpolis the fact that you even bothered to ask the question probably puts you in a different category then that the average parent. I put my children Preschool because I can afford it and because I have racial and gender based reasons for giving my children every possible advantage I feel I can afford them. That isn't the same for everyone and if I could have raised them with their grandparents during the day instead then I probably would have.

Click to expand...

Around here, Pre-K is pretty much 'kindergarten' (or what it used to be) and if you have two working parents it's the most logical place for them to go if you can afford it since it does give them an advantage when they get into elementary school. Kindergarten these days isn't play doh and blocks and neither was pre-k when my daughter was in it. By the time she got into elementary school she could write letters and do some pretty basic reading.

I remember asking our kindergarten teacher when we first started what the percentage was of kids who had some type of pre-k versus those that did not and her answer was somewhere around 90%.