I've already designated a room in my home as a classroom. In fact it's the same room that I do most of my work on this blog. This room is located next to the kitchen and is also near a bathroom. I figure if I'm going to provide a "high quality" preschool for four year old scholars they'll need snacks and once you feed the little scholars you need a bathroom for those "I gotta use it" moments. I also realize that I will need educational material so I did an internet search to make my purchases. Here is what I purchased.
- Crayons - for $1.00. This is the standard eight color box.
- Pencils - for $8.00. This is a package with multiple pencils. I could have purchased cheaper ones but we use cheap pencils at school and I hate them.
- Flash Cards - for $3.00. This is the alphabet.
- Flash Cards - for $3.00. These are the numbers.
- Construction Paper - for $12.00. This is a multiple color package.
- Arts and Crafts Activity Book - for $14.00. A little pricey but it's a good sized book.
- Colors, Shapes and More - for $6.00. This is cut out material.
- Scissors - for $2.00.
- Glue - for $3.00
- Reading Books - for $60.00. I bought lots because I like to read.
The city of Indianapolis under the leadership of the Mayor and the City/County Council either have or are about to approved an expenditure of $40,000,000 over a five year period to begin a preschool program for young scholars. Their preliminary numbers indicate that they want to identify between 750 and 1,200 four year old scholars from low income families and place them into a "high quality" preschool setting. Why are they spending $40,000,000? To start with too many four year old's are so poorly prepared by their parental units to enter kindergarten that our city leaders have decided to take them from their home and place them into a preschool learning environment. Here is the second reason, our city leaders think taking four year old scholars out of their home and placing them in a "high quality" preschool learning environment will help reduce crime in Indianapolis at some point in the future. Yes, you read that correctly. This $40,000,000 expenditure is a crime prevention expenditure.
Here is a cost comparison between my "high quality" preschool program for $112.00 and the Mayor and City/County Councils "high quality" preschool program. Our city leaders want to spend $40,000,000 over five years or $8,000,000 a year for a "high quality" preschool program. There target enrollment over these five years if from 750 to 1,200 scholars. If they enroll 750 young scholars the cost will be $10,600 per scholar. If they enroll 1,200 young scholars the cost will be $6,600 per scholar. Now some of you are thinking that's an obscene cost for a preschool scholar so let me tell you this little tidbit. The present cost to educate a scholar in my school corporation is approximately $8,400 per scholar per year.
I'm sorry but why spend from $6,600 to $10,600 per scholar for a "high quality" preschool program when you can do it for $112.00. While it doesn't make much sense to me, I know that finding competent parental units from a low social economic background that will spend $112.00 for educational material will not happen in the majority of the cases. Why? Because there are hundreds and hundreds of parental units bringing either a child or multiple children into this world who do not have their priorities right. That may seem like a pretty strong statement so I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. There are presently nine scholars in my classroom. I can say with confidence that it is rare that any of these scholars will arrive at school with their own pencil. It is rare that any of these scholars will arrive at school with a spiral notebook of their own. It is rare that any of the scholars will arrive at school and tell me about a book that they are reading at home. I can also say with confidence that six of the nine scholars have either a Play Station 4 or an XBox at home. The cost of a PS4 is right is around $400. Each game for PS4 is $35.00. When I looked at games for PS4 the advertisement I read listed ten popular games being purchased right now. One of them was a Disney game. One of them was a sports game. The other eight were killing and/or fighting games. As you can see, the parental units of these scholars are very good at buying violent video games for over $400.00 but not very good at purchasing educational materials for $112.00 and there in lies your problem.
So where do we go from here? From my standpoint I can say this, we don't need to start another grade level for four year old scholars. We presently have thirteen grade levels and that is plenty. It's apparent that something needs to be done about the parental units that are bringing forth a child into this world with no or very little knowledge on how to set priorities and raise this child. I have a few suggestions on what to do with these parental units but I'm not going in that direction as I will probably be viewed as some type of cold hearted nutcase extremist.
So what do you do with $8,000,000 per year if you don't spend it on a preschool program? I'd like to add it to the millions saved by cancelling that failure of a program called IRead3. I'd like to add it to the tens of millions of dollars that can be saved by cancelling that failure of a program called ISTEP. I'm then going to take all these millions of dollars and create a "high quality" kindergarten through second grade program that puts a cap on the number of scholars in each classroom at twelve. From there I'm going to do the simplest thing I can, I'm going to step out of the way and turn these smaller class sizes over to the true educational experts. No, I'm not talking about politicians and pointy headed intellectuals. I'm going to turn it over to the education experts that presently teach our kindergarten through second grade scholars and let them do their jobs. Will they be successful and raise the academic level of every scholar from learning how to read to reading to learn by the end of the second grade? There is not doubt in my mind.
Today is January 2, 2015 and I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I'd also like to thank all of you for continuing to read my blog. I'll be back in the classroom on January 5th and we'll see what the new year brings.
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