z45\doc\web\2000\09\lrand.txt




-----Original Message-----
From: Louis R. Andrews [mailto:lrand@groupz.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 2:19 PM
To: Philippe Gouillou
Cc: h-bd@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [h-bd] False startThe creator of Head Start





Philippe Gouillou wrote:


> Oct. 4, 2000 | Over his breakfast Wednesday morning, Edward Zigler was in a rage. Zigler, a Yale psychology professor and a legendary scholar of child development, was burning over two sentences delivered in the presidential debate Tuesday night by George W. Bush:


-Louis Andrews here


Zigler is a man apparently lost in a time warp for the past 36 years. HS
was designed to reduce or eliminate the black/white racial disparity in
education, but it actually increases it.  


Zigler's 1979 book quotes Sargent Shriver, the director of the Office of
Economic Opportunity, which started and managed Head Start:


"The rationale … [of Head Start] was a belief that human competence and
intelligence are very much shaped by one's environment. If we at OEO had
not done anything more than to show how foolish IQ tests are, how little
predictive value regarding competence they have, and how much people can
do if given … the right environment … then I feel we made one terrific
contribution to our society." 


Has a man ever been more wrong?




> Bush would basically abolish the program as we know it. His
proposal implies that the present-day Head Start is nothing but a
"big-government social program" divorced from real education. In
fact, Head Start is not one but thousands of community-based,
early-childhood programs combining preschool and the social support
needed to create strong elementary school pupils. Said Zigler: "The
governor seemed to have no sense that health and nutrition are
connected to reading ability, that the very stre


--
The 1995 RAND study that showed the scholastic ineffectiveness (for
blacks) of HS also showed that the health and nutritional benefits could
be provided for 10% of the cost of HS. See:
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/headst01.html


> 
> "That sense of ownership is desperately important to families, and is one reason Head Start has persisted," Zigler said, "but there was no understanding of that in the comments by Governor Bush."


It is "desperately important" because it provides largely useless
government jobs to the bottom end of the bell curve.


> Whether Bush's motivation is a sincere belief in the value of phonics, or he is simply pandering to the right, the governor Tuesday night declared war on the nation's most successful vehicle for early-childhood education. Head Start has survived the Great Society of the 1960s just as Social Security survived the New Deal, and for the same reason: It works.


Define "works."


--
Louis Andrews
Stalking the Wild Taboo
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/
---------------------------------------




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> -Louis Andrews here
>
> Zigler is a man apparently lost in a time warp for the past 36 years. HS
> was designed to reduce or eliminate the black/white racial disparity in
> education, but it actually increases it.


Yes, and he is totally wrong about phonics and whole language being equal in
outcomes.  According to Diane Ravitch's new book, consensus has formed on
phonics as the way to go; whole language has been a disaster but is still
protected by politics.  Gosh, just picture trying to learn a language with a
different alphabet, like Japanese or something, without knowing how to sound
out the letters, but by guessing the meaning of words within context?


Also, Zigler mentions nutrition.  Nutrition is important but what does it
say about parents that many schools are having to provide breakfast for
children?  People are having children and not feeding them breakfast?  What
does that say?






How to contribute to H-Bd: 1. To reply privately to just the sender of this message, click the "Reply" button on your email package. 2. To reply publicly to the entire H-Bd list, click the "Reply All" (or equivalent) button on your email package. 3. To start a thread, email your message to h-bd@egroups.com . To unsubscribe, send a blank email to h-bd-unsubscribe@egroups.com
l:\doc\web\2000\09\lrand.txt