Matt Yglesias

Forgot About Pre-K

I mostly support what Michelle Rhee is trying to do with the DC Public Schools, but the neglect of preschool programs as a vital element in improving student performance in the district is hard to forgive. A certain type of person isn’t interested in any education improvements that don’t involve picking fights with teacher’s unions, and this seems to me like perhaps an example of Rhee suffering from that affliction.

Home Alone

Funny movie concept, not-so-hot social policy concept:

In the Prince George’s County community of Riverdale Park, town officials have noted a distressing sign of the national economic downturn: more children left home alone to fend for themselves by working parents too strapped to afford child care.

The problem was discovered by code enforcement officers who inspect apartments in the town of 7,000. They used to come across such cases once every couple of years. Then, six months ago, they found one child left alone, followed by another and another.

Have I mentioned that in Finland there’s a commitment to making high-quality child care services universally available and universally affordable?

Skills Slowdown

Americans aren’t generally aware of this fact, but overall educational attainment in the United States is slipping slightly at the same time that other rich countries are improving. Thus “While the U.S. ranks second internationally in the percentage of adults over age 55 with a bachelor’s degree, we rank 11th among the percentage of younger workers who do so.” The slippage tends to be masked by the fact that, for now, our substantial lead in those older cohorts outweighs our smallish disadvantage in the youngest cohort, but obviously that’s not going to last forever.

The College Board has a report on turning this around that correctly observes that addressing the decline requires us to start long all the way back in early childhood, with better preschooling, as well as addressing direct college access issues related to affordability and so forth.