My education psycho wife has been known to refer to the Gen Xers...she calls them the Reagan kids...with young families as "children raising children". Living in high expectatoin of the school staff being able to immediately fill all of the voids in knowledge that they grew up taking for granted and aren't able to get kick started at home now with their own kids. Afraid in a peer comparisom society that they'll teach them the "wrong stuf"f so they teach then nothing at all. And then turn them over to strangers and expect instant results. Making the case for really strong early childhood, pre-K programs that, in a very conservative sense, didn't used to hardly exist or be seen as necessary because for the vast majority of little ones their parents were fairly literate and passed at least some of it along and they generally weren't necessary.
The absolute best use a person who has a family can make fo their time as a parent is reading to and discussing what was read with 1-5 year old children. There is no such thing as too much of it. Whether they are going to go to a big school or little school. City or rural. Public or private. On the bus, walking or dropped off. With the neighbor kids, or home schooled. If people are going to continue to NOT do that, it is (unfortunately) necessary that the big bad governmetn step in and try to aleviate the consequences of them not doing so.
Early exposure to the concept of acquired learning is what has those Asian, and other, nations beating our brains out in so many fields. The teachers I talk to say theri gravest dissapointment is when a perfectly able seeming parent who has a struggling elementray school child chasise them for not teaching their kid in a very short period fo time what they should have come to school knowing. Those kids stay behind forever.
