D.C. charters tackle preschool

Preschool advocates blame low-quality elementary schools and argue that non-academic skills learned in early childhood programs, such as persistence and self-control, don’t fade away.Charter operators hope that matching high-quality preschool programs with rigorous elementary experiences can create longer-lasting benefits, and especially help narrow racial and ethnic gaps in academic performance. They also say that offering classes to younger students will help attract more families to their schools, boosting enrollment.

At Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Northeast, test scores were low and enrollment was slipping, so it added pre-kindergarten three years ago. “If they don’t get this early education, they’re behind,” said Julita Brown-Dunn, a reading specialist who helped start Hyde’s pre-kindergarten program.

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Another attraction for charter operators is the money avaiable.The per-pupil funding allotment for preschool is nearly $12,000; for pre-kindergarten, it’s $11,629. Elementary, middle and high schools, which are allowed more students per classroom, get an average of about $9,500 per student.

At a time of tightening budgets, Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, worries that D.C.’s struggling high schools are being shortchanged by increased spending on early education. “It’s not that education is necessarily a zero-sum game, but there’s not an infinitely elastic amount of money for education,” she said.

Early childhood advocates counter that money spent on early education can help the whole system — if the programs are strong, with significant time devoted to independent play rather than teacher-directed lessons.

Not every charter meets that standard. Jaqueline Scott, a pre-kindergarten teacher who works at Hyde, said she left another charter preschool where the academics were too rigid. She declined to name the school.

“It was kids in chairs with pencils, and it was very structured,” Scott said. “It should not be that way.”

KIPP leaders say its early education programs are different from what their schools offer in higher grades. Nearly half of the eight-hour school day for pre-kindergartners is focused on academic subjects, but many of the activities revolve around games and play, and there is time for naps and recess.

“When you come to school at 3 and 4 and 5 years old, you should be laughing all day and having a great time,” said Bowen, the LEAP principal who was overseeing the pre-kindergarten writing lesson. “If we’re burning kids out by 5 years old, we’re defeating the mission of what we’re trying to do.”

Sarah Garland is a staff writer for the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.