Should the Public Schools Be Entrusted with Preschool Education: A Critique of the AFT Proposals

Abstract

-Any parent who has struggled with bureaucracy to secure special services for a child 'just that schools cannot provide early child development services. -Any parent who has a creative child can tell you that public schools are generally inflexible. -Anyone who has sought educational alternatives for children will tell you that a public system is slow to accept change. -Everyone (at least everyone over 20) knows that parents only come to for assemblies or if they've been called in to talk about their child's problem. -Everyone knows that buildings are open when school is open. Where would anyone find a door unlocked at 6 A.M. (except for high football team practice!)? Hold a meeting in at night? Who would pay custodian? Why then is American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of most powerful unions in country, recommending that very programs which require special services, flexibility, long hours, and (most important) parent involvement-early childhood programsbe sponsored by public schools? In preface to a 1976 AFT task force report to state and local union leaders (Putting Early Childhood and Day Care Services into Public Schools: The Position of American Federation of Teachers and an Action Plan for Promoting It), Albert Shanker asserts that the best way to insure quality programs and to clear away confusion and overlap that result from multiple federal delivery is to put all early childhood and day-care services in public schools (p. i.)