Universal preschool: Can it do what it promises?By Mark AndersonUniversal preschool might improve the lives of millions of children, but converting that promise into Montessori classrooms still appears to be a tall order. The legislative wrangling in Florida is the latest example of how daunting the challenge may be. Florida recently joined the list of states committed to offer free preschool to all its children, adopting an idea that has gained momentum since Georgia first adopted the goal in 1997. But in Florida, where voters in 2002 ordered that a statewide system be completed by fall 2005, fierce debates have slowed the design and implementation of the program. Arguments sprang up over the standards that will govern those publicly supported classrooms, the role that religious and other private preschool providers should play in the system, and who will finally pay the bills. Private Montessori providers have watched the proceedings with growing skepticism about whether the program's rules would allow anything resembling Montessori to be included, despite the curriculum's high standing among early childhood educators, according to Jim McGhee, administrator of the Alexander Montessori School in Miami. McGhee and his wife, Beverly, are founders of the Alexander school and the Montessori Teacher Training Institute, also in Miami. "When they really understood what it was about, Montessorians generally agreed this was a bad thing," said McGhee, who has joined other private providers in efforts to ensure that their schools would qualify for the system without major new curriculum or certification requirements. But the emerging standards would make it virtually impossible to operate a truly Montessori program, he says now, primarily because those guidelines won't allow multi-age groupings in classrooms, restricting participating classrooms to four-year-olds. New teacher certification standards, although they've been rolled back from earlier proposals, still are likely to require new training in phonics, testing, classroom management and - eventually - reading. And more standards may be coming from a new preschool division in the state's department of education. "They're ignorant about Montessori," McGhee said about state education department officials and lawmakers who are writing the new rules. "They don't know how much they don't know." The most immediate threat coming from the preschool planners in Tallahassee may be about money rather than pedagogy, though. Although the voucher amount won't be finalized until 2005 the Legislature postponed that thorny question until after this fall's election the figures that are being discussed range from $2,500 to $3,400 per student. Those amounts fall far short of the cost of operating a preschool, providers say, and the gap will widen because of a requirement that student-teacher ratios won't climb above 10 to 1. Private providers had hoped the state would allow them to charge a premium above the $2,500 voucher to offset the shortfall, but Florida officials say the "free preschool" law prohibits that. "I can't ask some parents to pay $4,000 if others who come with vouchers are only paying $2,500," said Mary Gaudet, owner of Montessori School of Pensacola and a 25-year Montessori veteran. The new program, which relies on the private school network to meet the new public education promise, takes another financial swipe at private providers by not compensating them for "insurance costs, classroom costs all the capital outlays that are included in public school budgets," said Cynthia Thomas, who owns and operates ten private and charter Montessori schools in the Tallahassee area and Georgia. Private preschools may refuse to take part in the universal program, but their owners say that many parents would have a hard time passing up $2,500 in order to remain in a Montessori school. And Gaudet and Thomas also worry that the free 4-year-old program will erode enrollment in their elementary programs, by pulling some children away before their parents can recognize Montessori's benefits. "Unless parents can see how Montessori works over that two-year period, in their child's third and fourth year, they won't have enough information to decide about whether to go on into Montessori elementary programs," Thomas said. Montessorians aren't the only Floridians troubled by the program. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and many state legislators have been eager to utilize the existing network of private programs, as a crucial component in meeting the ambitious timeline voters endorsed. But the private providers have balked at new certification standards created in Tallahassee, which would make many current teachers ineligible and ignore early childhood curriculums and private certification systems that are already well established. Many of the preschool initiative's supporters agree that private programs should play a key role in the program, but they insist that "high quality" standards for curriculum and teacher training must be imposed on any publicly funded program. They also say the system must ensure that preschool offerings aren't limited to religious schools, which now make up a major part of the provider system in many parts of the state, As of early May, the Florida House and Senate were finalizing versions of the program, which according to published reports still had extensive differences. If there's a silver lining, it's that Montessori preschool providers in Florida are talking to each other for the first time, says Thomas. She launched that first informal coalition after she started reading the proposed 187-page law, and was surprised by its broad new level of regulation and insufficient compensation. "When I saw that document and realized that this could be the end of Montessori, I e-mailed every name I had of school owners, teacher trainers, active teachers. The response has been great," Thomas said, and it helped reduce some of the initial certification standards and helped postpone others. But the challenge will continue over the next year when lawmakers examine the pilot preschool results and consider how to refine the major law as well as how to pay for it. "We want to fix some of the things we don't like, but we also need to recognize that there are a lot of other people who are going to try to add even more controls," she said. "That's when we're going to need to be organized, and get even more participation." |
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