Preschool penury:
O'Brien, David J
INVESTING IN CHILDREN PRESCHOOL PENURY TEACHING AT $4.12 AN HOUR At a recent party my wife took some good natured kidding from friends about the "college schedule" of her Montessori nursery...
...When a three-year insurance policy expired this fall the school found that rates had increased 1000 percent (not a hundred but a thousand) from $ 180 per year to almost $ 1,800...
...Parents understandably desire small classes and excellent facilities for their children...
...We calculated that, at $14,000 tuition (not including room, board, and fees), parents of college students with a four-course load, now standard in many places, pay $44.87 for each hour of class contact with a professor...
...and you may get a profit, before taxes, which amounts to between half and three-quarters of the disgraceful starting pay of a local grade school teacher...
...earlier, she heard similar comments about ending the year in early May...
...Then, of course, professors do research, publish the results, attend committee meetings, correct papers, prepare classes, and advise students...
...Good day care and early childhood education are available to only a minority of American families...
...There are other interesting points to the "college schedule"remark...
...Add in rent, supplies, and expensive educational materials...
...With the private sector increasingly able and willing to provide job-related training at all levels, with plenty of evidence showing the difficulty and cost of overcoming in high school the lack of motivation and skills with which students arrive, perhaps society would receive proportionately greater benefits from investment in early rather than late education...
...Fortunately for the professors, colleges have other sources of income, because an assistant professor making $24,000 early in a career, teaching three classes, earns slightly over $100 for every hour in class...
...Despite the demonstrated achievements of Head Start, despite a decade of learned discussion about working mothers, two-career families, and work, not welfare, despite mountains of data on the critical situation facing minority and poor families and their children, we as a nation have made no serious commitment to those of our children we know are less and less likely to finish high school, much less pay $14,000 tuitions to college...
...INVESTING IN CHILDREN PRESCHOOL PENURY TEACHING AT $4.12 AN HOUR At a recent party my wife took some good natured kidding from friends about the "college schedule" of her Montessori nursery school...
...Many parents who seek out nursery school education dream of their children at Harvard, Amherst, and other colleges with tuitions well above $14,000, tuitions they would be happy to pay if their children could only gain admission...
...All that may take more energy, patience, dedication, and time than preparing the classroom, calming the over-active and motivating more passive children, searching for new educational strategies, planning and organizing learning projects, filling out long forms for state regulatory agencies, recruiting students, meeting with parents, and trying to keep up on the professional literature...
...He teaches at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass.cester, Mass...
...The president of one college once remarked to me that' 'the tuition goes up and up and the parents rarely complain...
...consider the lack of the college's endowment, government and alumni support, and ability to add on fees for labs and equipment...
...Then there is the advanced training of the faculty, admittedly longer than the early childhood credits now required even for nursery school aides by the state's Office for Children, of the advanced studies required to become a head teacher, or the lengthy study and internship experience required for Montessori certification...
...In their heads most would admit that "quality day care" and good nursery school education are investments in their children's future, but the economic realities suggest meeting those needs at the lowest possible cost...
...Andrew Hacker recently suggested that if we really wanted to face the stark realities of poverty, we might consider making the kind of commitment to preschool and elementary education we made to higher education with the G. I. bill after World War II and during the post-Sputnik years...
...Her schedule has been shaped in part by that of her college-professor husband and college-age children, so the "college schedule" remark was not entirely inappropriate...
...at my wife's school that means a maximum of fifteen children a session, with a teacher and aide...
...Now it could be argued that the $14,000 college tuition includes more than class time...
...The problem, of course, is that these same parents are at an age when they are getting established in their careers, buying the now so expensive houses, struggling to make ends meet while spending time with their families...
...Most parents want the best for their children, and many are familiar with the scholarly evidence on the importance of early childhood experiences...
...Maybe people who do that work are only worth the few dollars an hour one pays the high school student in late afternoons...
...And, at those same parties where one might hear a comment about "college schedules," one also would find few as interested in the work of the nursery school teacher as that of the college professor...
...DAVID J. O'BRIEN David J. O'Brien's latest book is Faith and Friendship (Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., 1987), a history of the diocese...
...But a cost to parents of $44.87 an hour, and a professorial salary of $100 per class hour compared to $4.12 to cover the teaching time of teacher and aide...
...But neither was her unspoken response: "I wish I made a college-level salary...
...The remarks apparently arose from her decision to take an extra week off over the holidays...
...Maybe...
...After all, aren't science, literature, history, and politics more important than guiding fifteen small children for five hours a day...
...At the very least we might begin to ask whether we can have a full-employment economy-capable of fulfilling both the modest hopes of single parents and the less modest expectations of two-career professional couples-without increased attention to our children and a more generous attitude toward those we entrust with their care...
...That is about what parents pay for a baby-sitter, if they are lucky...
...There are libraries and labs, perhaps proportionately more expensive than even Montessori equipment...
...Nursery school parents pay $1,400 -the going rate at local Montessori schools, for 136 days, two-and-a-half hours per day-a rate of $4.12 an hour for the services of a teacher and aide...
Vol. 115 • April 1988 • No. 7
