CAQ school for four-year-olds meets resistance
Does anyone really understand the CAQ obsession with getting four-year-olds into formal classrooms? Other parties are pushing back and talking about the cost and the shortage of teachers.
Even though the CAQ just made a point of cutting school taxes, it’s promising 250 new classes for next year.
I recall François Legault being obsessed three years ago with the idea of making kids sit in school from 9 to 5, and having school be obligatory till age 18, “to reduce the province’s high dropout rate.” At the time it sounded like lunacy to me, and it still does. Does anyone see any sense in it?
Kevin 23:26 on 2019-02-17 Permalink
Schools are overcrowded.
School taxes will be reduced in many places.
So the money and space will come from where?
Maybe they think the government will save money because daycares have a ten-child cap per class at that age, while schools will have a 17-kid cap.
But it won’t be mandatory, so…
I don’t know why every government dicks around with education this much in this province.
Kate 08:13 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
Kevin, they really all do, and that’s why I think there should still be school commissions. There has to be a layer of stability between the contrasting theories of changing governments and the actual education delivered in the classroom.
Joey 11:32 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
I assume there are three possible motivating forces:
1. As Kevin points out, you could imagine a higher educator-child ratio in four-year-old kindergarten than in CPEs, which would save the government money. Keep in mind that in this scenario parents are left to their own devices during the summer (CPEs are open year-round).
2. When talking about this, Legault often discusses the importance of identifying kids who need extra resources at a young age. I wonder if there are personal stories that have had disproportionate influence on his thinking. I don’t see why you couldn’t invest these resources in CPEs, though.
3. Legault-as-candidate needed to come up with family-oriented policies to distinguish himself from the other parties and settled on this – educational attainment has been part of his rhetoric for years, as is common among rightist politicians (investment in schooling is good because it leads to economic growth). Now he’s premier and, like his stance on immigration, he’s got to put up or shut up.
Nine-to-five schooling makes sense if only because those are work hours – most kids find themselves inside a school for at least eight hours day because their parents are working. The fact that the first chunk and the last chunk (multiple hours a day, typically) are in the form of mildly supervised childcare seems to be a bit of a waste, no? Not that play/recess/fun isn’t important – it’s incredibly important – but the distinction between school and service de garde seems needlessly formal.
jeather 12:12 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
I don’t see how pre-k solves a problem that daycare doesn’t. It’s not cheaper for families — daycare runs all day, schools you need to pay for before and/or after school care, as well as lunch supervision. Daycare has fewer days off than schools do. More funding for CPEs seems to solve the problems just as well. Identifying kids who need extra resources is great — but are those resources available? (Hint: no.)
Joey 12:23 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
@jeather it’s cheaper for government, since you need about half as many teachers (17:1 ratio vs. 10:1, or whatever the numbers are). Of course there are significant costs in having to build the infrastructure since so many schools are beyond capacity.
jeather 12:45 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
But if your kid is in daycare, why would you switch out to a pre-k? Are there a lot of kids who aren’t in daycare but whose parents would like them in pre-k?
Kevin 14:42 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
I had one child who went to daycare until kindergarten.
The other child did pre-K at age 4, then kindergarten.
The amount of ‘education’ in pre-K is minimal. I’m talking two hours a day of formal, structured education.
And that includes children getting remedial scissors training.
No, I’m not joking. That’s an actual example used by a pre-K teacher.
Joey 16:38 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
@jeather I assume Legault’s long term plan is for CPEs to end earlier and school to start with pre-K.