A Launch Pad for Tykes

Oklahoma shows the nation how to do preschool right.

By Alain Jehlen

Mr. Worm is a critter on the cutting edge of education.

In the space of five minutes, Mr. Worm, who's bright green, wears a red cap, and lives in an apple, recently taught 17 4-year-olds in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the importance of honesty and friendship, and then helped them learn how to retell a story in their own words.

That's a tall order for a worm, but he had help from teacher Talitha Bray because, of course, Mr. Worm is a puppet. And while he has no training for his job, Bray has plenty: a bachelor's degree, early childhood certification, and 16 years' experience teaching at the Bunche Early Childhood Development Center.

She is the perfect example of why Oklahoma's preschool program is the pace-setter in American preschool education.

As of the most recent national figures, in 2006, Oklahoma had more 4-year-olds in preschool than any other state—70 percent in the main state-funded system, and over 90 percent when you include other programs.

Just as important, Oklahoma requires that every preschool teacher have a bachelor's degree and early childhood certification.

Nationwide, 20 percent of 4-year-olds are in state-funded preschools. Many Western European countries offer high-quality preschool for all children, and America is starting to catch up. But many states are trying to do it on the cheap by employing teachers without full preparation. Oklahoma recognizes that hiring highly skilled teachers pays off.

That's why Bray's children were in for an educational feast at story time. First, she read them a book about raccoons eating ripe corn, pausing to discuss hard words (kernel, husk) and to ask questions to get them thinking. ("Why did they hurry back to the forest when the sun came up?")

Suddenly, she realized she had forgotten to invite Mr. Worm, who loves stories. She thought about not telling him because he might get mad, but she decided it was important to tell the truth. Mr. Worm was upset, but told her he would still be her friend.

Then Bray asked the children to fill him in:

"The raccoons ate all the corn!"

"The owl was looking at them!"

"I saw a spider!"

This all happened about 9:30 a.m. By then, the children had already sung several start-of-the-day songs, discussed the weather, watered the plants, talked about why they needed to water the plants, worked on their books about the color orange, found the word "orange" and the word "is" in a whole slew of sentences, debated which day of the week it was, sung a song about the days of the week, gone to the bathroom, done Simon Says-type games while walking to the cafeteria, eaten oranges and oatmeal with milk for breakfast, visited the bathroom again to wash their hands, and had a few minor squabbles, which Bray coached them to resolve:

"Xavier is messing with me!"

"Use your words."

"Xavier, stop messing with me!"

That same day, 110 miles to the east at the Stilwell Preschool in Stilwell, Oklahoma, Eileen Tidwell introduced her children, mostly  Cherokee Indians like herself, to the science of sorting, first with geometric shapes and then plastic fruit. She told them their parents sort dishes in their kitchens, and people who work in grocery stores sort real fruit. "Children need to know why we're learning this. It's not just something we do in school," she explained.

Tidwell has a wide range of students. Some whip through the activity, others are uncertain. One little girl with brown bangs and missing front teeth sorts the shapes well but can't explain what she is doing, or maybe she's just shy.

At the dollhouse nearby, two girls are anything but tongue-tied as they act out scenes of daily living. They load six dolls into a wooden truck. "They're going to jail. They were bad. They shoot someone!"

Stilwell, the "Strawberry Capital of the World," is a very poor town of 3,300. Some of Tidwell's students live in foster homes; one has been in several. Poverty, alcohol, and drugs have taken a heavy toll here.

Extensive research has shown that high-quality preschool is especially helpful for children like these. A Georgetown University study found that children of all races and all income levels benefited from Oklahoma preschools, but low-income children learned the most.

The academic gains in Oklahoma were in the range achieved by model preschools in Chicago and Ypsilanti, Michigan. Researchers have followed the Chicago and Ypsilanti children for decades. They found that these lucky children needed less special education help, were more likely to graduate from high school, earned more money, and got into less trouble with the law than comparable children. One study calculated the long-term benefits at 16 times the cost. The return on this "investment" was twice as high as the stock market average.

But low-quality, low-cost preschool programs have failed to show such stellar results. Critics have cautioned that the educational experience created in the hothouse environment of small, experimental programs like those in Chicago and Ypsilanti can't be replicated in big programs serving all children. Oklahoma proves them wrong.

Oklahoma built its preschool system over many years. Gov. Brad Henry's wife, Kim Henry, a former teacher and member of the Oklahoma Education Association, has been a forceful advocate.

Tidwell and Bray, like most Oklahoma preschool teachers, are paid on the K–12 teachers scale, which is why the system attracts and keeps well-qualified teachers for its youngest students. In other states, they'd probably be paid half as much.

What difference does it make that Bray and Tidwell are so well-prepared? Bray says her education taught her that "you can engage their minds. I ask open-ended questions and give them time to respond. If I hadn't taken the courses, I would have been more likely to just say, 'This is what you do.'"

Tidwell has a master's degree in early childhood education and wrote her thesis on "natural literacy"—teaching children about reading in the context of daily life. She stocks magazines and books in the classroom's dramatic play area. After she reads the children a book, they often "read" it to their dolls.

Both teachers, although their styles are different, make effective use of probing, sometimes surprising questions. So when Tidwell introduced her charges to the tale of the gingerbread man, she stopped to ask about the secret thoughts of the fox who offered to carry him across the water. Later she asked, "Was the fox happy or sad at the end?"

"Sad!"

"Happy! Because he ate the gingerbread man!"

Said Tidwell, "They don't always get the right answer, but they know how to think." 

Send comments on this story to ajehlen@nea.org.