Universal Preschool

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Recommended: Proposal for parental involvement in early childhood education

What is Universal Preschool? The thought of universal preschool and education has been around for quite some time. A man by the name of Robert Owen was the first to come up with the idea to support early education for young children back in the 1820s (Fuller, 2008). Owen’s push for early education was due to his worries of his factory workers’ children possibly not being stimulated with learning therefore limiting their chance of a head start in life. Fuller (2008) disclosed that it was then that Owen proposed that children learn alongside with their peers (away from family) by enrolling a school setting for young children. Upon establishing schools in Britain, Owen came over to the states into southern Indiana, when he implemented the same model of learning and founded the New Harmony school in 1825 (Fuller, 2008). From there, the common school movement was taking off in the East and Midwest as well, spurred by fellow Massachusetts reformer Horace Mann. Amazingly, an estimated 40 percent of the commonwealth’s three-year olds attended a public school in 1839 (Fuller, 2008). Yet they ran into opposition by people stating that exposing children to education at an early age can be damaging to their development. It didn’t take long before people realized that early education was needed. In the 1980s, child care was back on the national agenda due to the education reform movement (Tejada, 2010). Tejada (2010) further disclosed that several states even launched pre-kindergarten programs for disadvantaged children. Why the Need of Universal Preschool Two-thirds of 4-year-old children in the United States attend preschool, as well as 40% of 3-year-olds (Tejada, 2010). Half of those are enrolled in a public program, such as state prekinde... ... middle of paper ... ...ducation, 35(4), 555-563. Lasser, J., & Fite, K. (2011). Universal Preschool's Promise: Success in Early Childhood and Beyond. Early Childhood Education Journal, 39(3), 169-173. Punelli LeMire, D. (2009). Universal Preschool. Retrieved from http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/univpresch.pdf Rich, M. (2013). Few States Look to Extend Preschool to All 4-Year-Olds. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/education/early-education-far-short-of-goal-in-obama-speech.html Samuels, C. A. (2009). Preschool Programs Tread Thin Budget Ice. Education Week, 28(35), 18-22. Tejada, E. (2010). The Promise of Preschool: From Head Start to Universal Pre-kindergarten. Education Review (10945296), 1-6. Weinstein, A. (2010). Obama on Early Childhood Education. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Obama_Early_Childhood_Education/

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