Utah's Brave New Pre-K World
Utah has decided that pre-school can be delivered as a software package.
As reported Emma Brown in yesterday's Washington Post, the state has decided-- with the generous financial assistance of the federal government-- to try shrinking the entire pre-school experience into fifteen minutes a day of computer time.
You get an idea of the kind of thinking involved here when you see the name-- Utah Preparing Students Today for a Rewarding Tomorrow! UPSTART!! In it, children will deal with a series of games, songs and lessons, aided by two cartoon raccoons named Rosy and Rusty (fun fact: Utah is one of the few states in the US where raccoons do not live).
Why has Utah decided to launch this brave new world in which fifteen minutes of computer-and-mouse-time (because if there's anything three- and four-year-olds are great at, it's operating a computer mouse)? Well, Utah is one of ten states that doesn't fund pre-school, and it is at the bottom of the barrel for per-student funding in K-12. So you could explain the appeal of this idea as the sponsor of the bill, State Senator Howard A. Stephenson, does:
“We want to reach the greatest number of children with the resources that we have,” Stephenson said. “I don’t think we’re being cheap at all. We’re being smart.”
Or you might go with this theory:
“It’s wishful thinking by state legislatures,” said Steven Barnett, the director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. “We want preschool, we want to get CURMUDGUCATION: Utah's Brave New Pre-K World:
