Even Start: A Lousy Program Everyone Loves
Carlson, Tucker
Even Start: A Lousy Program Everyone Loves By Tucker Carlson This summer, the House of Representatives moved to cut or eliminate some 130 education programs. Some, however, were so sacrosanct that...
...We go ahead, have children and hope that things work out...
...Nothing less than the best job-training program ever devised, says Rebecca Roberts, director of an Even Start project in Washington, D.C...
...Which is not to say Even Start doesn't accomplish anything...
...In the case of Even Start, however, the rejoinder sounds especially tinny...
...Parenting is the only thing we do in life that we're never trained for," explained an Even Start instructor to the New York Times...
...Isolated Even Start projects may lift large numbers of their graduates from the unemployment rolls, but most don't even come close...
...Even Start workers in that city, wrote the Abt evaluators, "report that many husbands are abusive, but that women are reluctant to get help...
...William Goodling, the chairman of the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee and a former school administrator, who helped create the program in 1988...
...Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones: Kids in the control group, who had never seen the inside of an Even Start classroom, made almost exactly the same gains...
...If you visit the Even Start programs, they are constantly concentrating on reading-readiness skills...
...While technically true- the study found Even Start parents more likely than their control-group peers to get high-school equivalency certificates-it was hardly something to brag about...
...Howard Miller, director of several Even Start projects in suburban Maryland, explains how a program designed to teach reading now concerns itself with the Whole Person: "We really address all aspects of parenting: health and nutrition, routines, organizing your home, immunization, safety...
...Stress management...
...And the Even Start fan club has grown under the Clinton administration...
...Congressman Goodling simply refused to believe the news...
...Staff also report that parents are cleaner and better-groomed, that parent-child communication has improved, and that parents are more positive with their children...
...When the Clinton administration suggested turning the program's funds over to the states in a block grant earlier this year, Goodling led the effort to stop the plan...
...it helps parents as well, who in turn can help their children...
...Some, however, were so sacrosanct that even the energized Republican budget-slashers let them be...
...An astonishingly diverse array of political figures has fought to preserve Even Start, a program that tries to teach reading to poor children and their parents at the same time...
...His deputy secretary, Madeleine Kunin, seconded her boss with statistics...
...The reason...
...They didn't...
...According to a recent evaluation," she explained to a reporter, children in Even Start "have doubled their learning capacity...
...In Phoenix, "parenting workshops" have "included self-esteem, stress management, child abuse, domestic violence, parent-child communication, spouse abuse, how to take a local bus, and making children's toys...
...The evaluation, financed by federal dollars, was a model of sound research techniques, with carefully matched control groups, and sophisticated analysis of immense amounts of data...
...The GED," concluded a report issued earlier this year by Robert Reich, "appears to have more of a credentialing than a training effect...
...Pierre, one of the researchers who worked on the Abt evaluation of the program, has a theory...
...The idea [of Even Start] makes sense," he says, "so people think there should be a way to make it work...
...The Even Start Family Literacy Program, beloved by politicians in both parties, survived the brutal Appropriations Committee process without a scratch and is slated to get $102 million next year- almost seven times what it received when first funded six years ago...
...But what sort of teacher is Even Start...
...The implication, of course, is that, without "training" from programs like Even Start, things don't work out, not for poor parents, at least...
...And, as the congressman reminded his audience, "parents are the best teachers...
...Administrators there "feel that the program builds esteem in adults...
...However, they do try to address these issues in home visits and parenting workshops...
...And why does Congress keep paying for it...
...Darling's explanation is an old favorite in Washington, where government programs are never failures, just not "fully funded...
...In other words: Looks good, must work...
...Since divorce is not acceptable in the Hispanic community, even a woman's family does not encourage her to leave her husband...
...Parents and children "do get some literacy skills, but they really get self-confidence...
...Robert St...
...At first, results seemed promising: Abt's researchers discovered that Even Start kids had made substantial gains over a year and a half...
...Barbara Bush touted the program, as did her husband, who cited Even Start in speeches as an example of government at its best...
...All of those are major issues...
...In a memo sent to Even Start administrators, for instance, Department of Education officials boasted that "Even Start helped many adults attain a GED...
...Ostensibly designed to determine how well parents are teaching their children at home, the forms include a number of questions like, "Who buys the groceries for the family...
...You bet, says Chairman Goodling...
...Only 14 percent of the unemployed adults studied had found a job by the end of their affiliation with Even Start, compared with 22 percent of the control group...
...In Hackensack, N.J., the Even Start staff took children and their parents to the circus and the Statue of Liberty...
...In Birmingham, Ala., "one trip was to the city jail, at parents' request, to view the facility and visit Death Row...
...A is for anchovy") Back in Washington, Rebecca Roberts boasts about the extracurriculars her Even Start project offers, from classes in arts and crafts, to advice on "talking to your kids about sex...
...It bears on the child's emotional development," responds Miller...
...People get employed," she declares confidently...
...Old-line liberals such as Sen...
...Even the Labor Department has declared equivalency diplomas almost useless for anything but wall decorations...
...Especially nurturing, the relationships...
...How did this happen...
...Social scientists from an independent research firm, Abt Associates of Boston, spent four years evaluating the nearly 500 individual Even Start sites across the country...
...Randy "Duke" Cunningham...
...Thanks to an extensive study of the program published earlier this year, it is now possible to answer that question in some detail...
...Actually, it's not...
...Having failed to teach people to read, Even Start has broadened its aims...
...Enthusiasm, outlook on life, all of those things, they're hard to measure," he says...
...It did not do a good job of portraying the success of Even Start," she says...
...Economic success is what counts: "Finding employment and housing-we really push that a lot," she says...
...I asked for more money, in fact...
...So much for economic empowerment...
...As the first major study of a "family literacy" program, the evaluation drew intense interest from educators...
...Does this mean Even Start will enjoy the continued support of the Republican Congress...
...No one has cheered more loudly for Even Start than Republican Rep...
...In other words, children who spent their time in Even Start would have learned just as much had they enrolled in a regular preschool, or stayed home and watched Sesame Street...
...Another "major issue" apparently now related to literacy is spanking...
...According to the Abt evaluation, enrolling in Even Start makes it considerably less likely that a parent will find work later...
...I say, 'No, you can't hit them.'" Though he couches it in educanto, Howard Miller makes essentially the same demand of parents: "We're trying to find other ways of discipline other than spanking...
...Self-esteem...
...For supporters of Even Start, data like these seemed perverse, like the scene in Woody Allen's Sleeper when a present-day man wakes up 200 years from now and discovers that smoking, fatty foods, and sugar improve health and longevity...
...Over its first three years, the federal government spent an average of $4,022 a year for each family enrolled in Even Start...
...Even Start, Goodling pointed out, doesn't simply help children to read...
...Families enrolled in the program do a number of fun things...
...The researchers analyzed the results of a common word test given to Even Start children when they joined the program, and again when they left...
...True, true...
...Sharon Darling, head of the National Center for Family Literacy and one of the architects of Even Start, admits the Abt evaluation hasn't shed much favorable light on the program she helped design...
...The new frontier in literacy education, it turns out, is telling parents how to raise their kids...
...That is, if only it had more money...
...Keep in mind, Even Start is a literacy program...
...One particularly revealing experiment concerned vocabulary, perhaps the key measure of any literacy program...
...Or it was...
...Lan Dao, an Even Start worker in the Mount Pleasant section of Washington, explains how, in addition to advising parents on what to feed their children, she tells them not to spank their kids...
...Questionnaires given to parents by Even Start workers are even more intrusive...
...According to Roberts, it doesn't much matter whether or not the program actually teaches anyone to read...
...Secretary of Education Richard Riley has described it as "one of the bright spots" in the Clinton education plan...
...Another study found that Even Start had a negative effect on household income...
...And what, exactly, does a parent's choice of corporal punishment have to do with reading...
...Researchers got roughly the same results from every literacy test they administered...
...Its recipients, the report said, "appear to fare only slightly better in the labor market than seemingly comparable high school dropouts...
...How do brothers and sisters solve problems, feeling loved, feeling confident, building responsibility in children...
...Studies have shown," Roberts explains, that most of the unemployed adults enrolled in Even Start find jobs when they complete the program...
...If the funding outlined in the House this summer becomes law, Even Start will get more federal dollars next year than public libraries, arguably the best literacy program of all...
...What is all that money buying, if not literacy...
...And apparently with great results...
...That's the bottom line...
...In Reading, Pa., hungry students took a field trip to "Pizza Hut, where they made their own pizzas"- presumably as a exercise in literacy awareness...
...Goodling has no such doubts...
...Not much compared to some government expenditures, but not bad for a literacy program that doesn't make people literate...
...The same tests were given to a control group over the same period of time...
...This is federal paternalism on an awe-inspiring scale, and it pervades Even Start...
...But I'm not sure we've found it yet...
...Self-confidence...
...The Even Start staff are frustrated by the problems that they see but cannot solve...
...Paul Simon are fans...
...When the scores were compared, it turned out that children who had eluded Even Start learned more vocabulary words-and learned them more quickly- than those who had enrolled in it...
...Fans of Even Start appeared particularly enthusiastic about it, certain the results would prove the program's worthiness...
...and who makes "most of the decisions about how the family income is to be spent...
...Notice a theme here...
...Perhaps the best evidence that Even Start has completed the long journey from literacy program to support group comes from Phoenix...
...There are also at least three questions concerning-you guessed it-spanking...
...But anyway, says Darling, Even Start would work well if only it were more "comprehensive...
...Stunned educrats-those who had made it all the way through the evaluation-did their best to respond to the evidence, playing up the scraps of good news contained in Abt's report...
...Listen to some of the program descriptions sent in to evaluators by staff at Even Start projects around the country: In Indianapolis, "one group activity to emphasize group connectiveness and foster parents' self-esteem has parents and staff stand in a large circle and toss a ball of twine across the circle, making a large 'spider's web.' Before someone throws the ball, she has to announce to whom she is throwing it and then say something nice about that person...
...so too are right-wing fire-breathers like Rep...
...I didn't see that part of the study," he admits, but "I would say that that [the mediocre test scores] would be impossible...
...But then, his assessment is unhindered by anything so rigid as test results...
Vol. 1 • October 1995 • No. 5
