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Three quarters of Illinois kids may not be ready for school

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Illinois

New numbers released by the Illinois State Board of Education Monday suggest that a mere 24 percent of kindergartners in Illinois are actually ready for school, a startlingly low number, advocates say.

The numbers give the first-ever statewide picture of how prepared Illinois five-year-olds are for the routines and rigors of school. State officials and early childhood education advocates, including many who pushed for the readiness measure to be developed and made public, say the low numbers underscore the importance of early childhood education.

“The data shows that we have a lot of work to do,” said Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Jackie Matthews. “The state is really talking about how we can increase investments in early learning because this is such a critical time for children.” […]

The data also show that a well-documented achievement gap between rich and poor kids exists before kindergarten. On average, kids who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches were 14 percentage points behind their higher-income peers on school readiness.

The ISBE report can be found here.

* Mrs. Rauner was interviewed on this topic not long ago and she had some insights about how important early childhood education is…

This is the most important human capital and social justice issue for our nation. We are increasingly a society that requires everyone to have both social-emotional self-regulation skills and the flexibility to continue to learn throughout your life. We know that, as Warren Buffett says, all men are created equal and that lasts for the first 15 seconds. Something we know now that we didn’t know a generation ago, or even 10 years ago, is the importance of the prenatal period to long-term health and health outcomes. And so, actually it’s not even true that all people are born equal.

We really have to ensure that we’re giving all families the kinds of supports they need in order to help their children develop to their highest potential. It’s a moral issue, but it’s also an economic and civic issue as well. […]

The Early Childhood Block Grant (which is the Illinois State Board of Education’s early childhood education program) was cut several years in a row starting in 2010. We lost $80 million over a number of years. The block grant didn’t begin to grow again until 2016, so because of that, enrollment did drop during that time. It has rebounded. We are not sure that the numbers are not back up and over, but the (latest publicly available counts) aren’t current. We just aren’t sure.

* So, this Pritzker campaign press release blaming everything on Gov. Rauner may not hold up to scrutiny…

A new survey released by the Illinois State Board of Education details Bruce Rauner’s staggering failure to ensure Illinois’ children are ready for kindergarten.

The report finds only 24% of students enter kindergarten demonstrating readiness, with 42% not reaching readiness in any of the three core developmental areas and low-income students being disproportionately left behind. The report comes after Rauner’s two-year budget crisis that saw pre-k education and childcare funding slashed throughout the state.

“There is nothing more critical to ensuring children succeed than early childhood education, but Bruce Rauner is entirely failing to give Illinois children the opportunities they deserve,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “The fact that just a quarter of children in this state are prepared for kindergarten is entirely unacceptable and a testament to the magnitude of this governor’s failures.”

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 2:44 pm

Comments

“Parents, guardians, and families are essential for children’s healthy development”

wise words from the study

Comment by Texas Red Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 2:53 pm
Total wiff by the Pritzker Crew.

Ugh.

Here’s the response.

“JB Pritzker has been a strong advocate for early childhood development and preparing all children for their first experiences in Education.

JB was proud, with his family and Pritzker foundations, to be a leader in this endeavor, and teaming up with The Ounce of Prevention and their mission for children.

As Illinois’ next governor, JB Pritzker will continue to be a leader in early childhood development as he has with The Ounce and all willing to be the leaders to help all children.”

Why go all negative?

Working with The Ounce when Rauner wasn’t paying vendors… and touting that passively… that’s a more stinging response.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 2:58 pm
Kindergarten teachers can tell right away if a child’s parents have sat down and read books with them or not.

Comment by DuPage Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 3:06 pm
Wow, I don’t even know where to begin. So I’ll start with the broad statement. This is hogwash. First, there is no one level that makes a child ready for school. School is not like “you have to be this tall to get on this ride” All children vary in all areas of their development. Second,if I understand the scoring this is based on subjective observations of the teacher. Just how rigorous in the training in the use of this tool to ensure reasonable reliability. Third, this has not been validated by any external testing. It has been put together based on what some people think are valid indicators. But there is no testing that I could find that supports it’s conclusions. Looks to me like another way for the education system to ask for more money.

Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 3:12 pm
NPC, your comment underscores the difference between skepticism and cynicism. One is healthy, the other isn’t.

I doubt you will ever be persuaded, so I’m glad the decision to fund universal preschool isn’t in your hands.

Comment by 47th Ward Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 3:25 pm
==wise words from the study==

Of course they are. My problem is when people want to wash their hands of something using that as an excuse. What should be and what is are two different things.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 3:29 pm
It’s better to have JB say “I know it’s important. That’s why I was quick to fund Ounce when diana rauner informed me of the shortfall in 2016 & 2017.”

Comment by Jocko Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 3:43 pm
NPC–you are not an Educator nor have you probably gone near a school since you left one.

There is such a thing as readiness. Period. Can they sit still? Can they listen and follow directions? Can they control their impulses? Are they capable of focusing? THese are not things you find on a standardized test (but those standardized tests a few years down the road sure do tell if those things are a problem or not as a result in the completion of the test and performance on those tests).

In any case, the problem that children are not ready or prepared to come to school to learn and function as students is a direct result of educational neglect in the home. Heck, let the teachers deal with it, right? So once again, for the nth time, schools are charged with cleaning it up and creating students who are ready and able to learn. Instead of starting in a good place, teachers have work to do that shouldn’t be.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:07 pm
Three quarters of Illinois kids may not know how much three quarters is.

Comment by City Zen Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:08 pm
===Three quarters of Illinois kids may not know how much three quarters is===

And adults.

I read something not long ago how a third-pound burger promo flopped because people thought quarter pound burgers were larger since 4 is bigger than 3 and they were resistant to higher prices for the third pounders.

I am not making this up: http://mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:11 pm
==Kindergarten teachers can tell right away if a child’s parents have sat down and read books with them or not==

And further down the road any teacher can tell by student’s attitude and behavior whether the home they come from values education. And sometimes, the kids will even tell you so. Pretty amazing what students DO tell teachers.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:13 pm
Sad to say it, but I’m not surprised. I’ve seen children show up for pre K and even K who have never held a book or been read to, some have never sat at a table to eat or even held a fork. This is a failure of the family but then some of the mothers are not literate and not much more than children with no life skills themselves. Generational poverty is a tough one to fix. The welfare support and benefit systems keeps them alive but we do nothing to coach them in life skills to move them out of it.

Comment by Tequila Mockingbird Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:20 pm
What good is early childhood education if we’ll just let kids grow up to get clouted out of school by billionaires with political connections?

Comment by Precinct Captain Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:47 pm
The parent is the child’s first teacher, so learning begins at birth.
Experiences/background knowledge and vocabulary necessary for reading comprehension start accumulating immediately.
Decoding is not reading - it’s just the first step.
Without very early intervention, it’s difficult for lower income kids to catch up.

The Early Catastrophe
The 30 Million word Gap by Age 3

Comment by TinyDancer(FKASue) Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 5:08 pm
=people thought quarter pound burgers were larger since 4 is bigger than 3 =

Shel Silverstein said it best:

My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more then one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes– I guess he didn’t know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just ’cause he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head–
Too proud of me to speak!

Comment by TinyDancer(FKASue) Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 5:15 pm
What bothered me was finding that some new students entering kindergarten or first grade had not been properly toilet trained by their parents. In some instances, these poor children were really neglected.

Comment by Practical Politics Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 5:59 pm
Not all of the money Rauner promises reached schools.

Comment by JS Mill Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 7:14 pm
Kindergarten in 2018 in Illinois isn’t the kindergarten that you or I attended. In the 80’s when I was a kid, we learned the alphabet, counting, shapes, and colors. We spent the entire year using crayons- pencils weren’t introduced until the end of the year. My daughter starts 1st grade in a week. Last year, her class spent one week reviewing colors, another week on shapes, and had homework nightly that was required to be completed with a pencil. Common Core curriculum has pushed addition, subtraction, pages of sight words, and handwriting into kindergarten. It was overwhelming for my kid- who comes from a stable middle class family where we read to her every night. We work full time and struggled to get her fed, homework completed, and in bed by 7:30 so she wouldn’t be utterly exhausted at school (where there is no nap time, by the way… and very little play time). Long story short- there’s something wrong with kindergarten, and it’s not the kids.

Comment by LC Tuesday, Aug 14, 18 @ 12:06 am
Sorry I got in late to this thread. I am a public school kindergarten teacher and I am flabbergasted that they are using this data publicly and politically. This is the first year of implementation and there were tons of questions and issues that were brought up (by K teachers) regarding the KIDS assessment. I can’t believe that the data from KIDS would be used politically at this point or could even be construed as valid.

Comment by DiverDown Tuesday, Aug 14, 18 @ 12:15 am
@LC
=one week reviewing colors=
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
What a turn-off.
Most kids are naturally curious and eager to learn.
It’s stuff like this that makes them hate school and stop learning - especially the creative kids.

Comment by TinyDancer(FKASue) Tuesday, Aug 14, 18 @ 10:15 am