These programs reinforce to the parents that they do not have to be involved in their childrens education, the school will come to them & teach their children. My 3 yr old granddaughter has known her ABCs by sight since she was 2, does simple math, can write her name, knows her colors & counts to 20 & guess what, all she has had exposure to is her home environment, she doesn't attend daycare because it is too expensive. We taught her ourselves, parents & grandparents working together....what a novel idea & it's free.

"Common sense is not that common."

"Stupid is rarely self-aware."

I have a young child we are planning on sending to pre-k 3. It will be private and we will pay for it, gladly. We also have chosen not to have any more kids. One of the reasons, but not the only, was so we could do things like pay for private school.

fatguy, kash & cb, you all are correct in your assertions. You're just saying the things nobody wants to hear. Truth hurts sometimes. And logic, you really should watch using the word stupid in your posts, when you're the one who typed "common since". Guess your early schooling didn't sink in on the spelling.

Logic, a 2-3 year old learning what exactly?? We are, unfortunately, a nation of parents having too many kids they cannot afford or take care of properly. We seem to expect the school to raise them and teach them right from wrong. And again, the haves must pay for the have nots. I did not attend kindergarten and have a college degree, as does my wife. We have 3 children who are A-B students and all 3 learned their ABCs and some beginner math in first grade. What is a 2 year old going to retain when they have an attention span of 5 minutes, tops? Seriously? And Albert, it is NOT the school system's job to teach your child how to walk.

We need preschool for all kids low income to the rich. Every kid should have great free education from 3k to high school years!

There is no question the system needs reform. Eliminating programs is not the way to go. Taking a step back and using common since methodology to reform our current programs is best! We have spent trillions of dollars in the Iraq war yet we cant fund our own schooling... something is wrong with the overall picture. We need to take a good hard look at the private school sector year after year they churn out college ready students that go on to be leaders in our community.They do this without standardized testing the key is not to dumb the class down to the level of the slowest kid let that kid fall behind! Teach to the hard working students so they can learn at a rate that gives our kids the world class education that they deserve!

I can understand this program for children who are behind in their age benchmarks. But how are these children's toddler years different than the tot of a parent who works full time and doesn't qualify as low income.
"If a child's not had anything except the home environment or maybe a day care. " Isn't that all children--their experiences are either at home or in daycare.
I have worked nights for 15 years and still have time for my child. You are working when they are sleeping. Somewhere there was time for more children.

I agree that a good foundation is needed for a child to succeed and reach their full potential. However, something isn't working and continuing to throw money at the situation is not doing us any good.

Logic, you make a good point about Texas continually being in the bottom of the list. The same can be said about America. It's no secret that America continues to be out paced by the rest of the civilized world. Year after year we pump billions and billions into our educational system and yet we continue to see the performance decline.

We have developed a whole mess of new systems, tests, programs and who knows what else, and yet year after year we see our global ranking fall.

It reminds me of a guy I knew in college. He said that when he was traveling in Europe that he would tell people he was Canadian. If he told them he was American, they would either want to fight him or they would laugh at him.

Your probably against education all together...You know what they say cant fix stupid!

Those of you calling preschool babysitting are uneducated about the program and what it provides!This is a head start these kids go into kindergarten knowing what others would just be learning had they not had the head start. You are probably the same folks that complain about drop out rates and the fact that Texas is way behind the national average for education and has one of the biggest drop out rates. You get kids in school early give them a good foundation and the results speak for themselves.

I will leave my typo so everyone can feel smart. =D

What an awesome women. She is modeling hard work and the importance of education to her child and to the community.

My middle child was in school at the age of 4. The child had motor skill problems but with help, of the school programs everything is good. The child could not talk and walk very good. But today there is no problems. I thank the school district for where my child is today. Normal everyday kid.

----It's very scary for us as a state and a country as to what's going to occur when you start cutting from early childhood," said Rachel Parsons, Family Connection Center coordinator. ----

Yeah, very scary to think things may have to return to the dark days of kids staying home and learning from thier parents until time to go to kindergarten. How did we manage back then ? My whole generation was lost because we didn't have facilitators coming into our homes in our toddler years.

Oh the horror of it all !!

2-4 year old kids goin to school? Really? It's nothing more than babysitting and everybody knows it.

It's sad that education is being cut. All you hear about is going to school, go to college. You have to get a degree. Everything is going up in price except people's income. How do they expect people to be able to afford college? And summer care while kids are not in school. Organizations need to start working together to make more summer camps, etc available for working parents who can't afford not to work. They really need to look at putting a cap on food stamps and other benefits that people are living off of. Go get a job!!! I understand we all need a little help to get back on out feet when things get hard and I'm all good with it. But come on, don't make it your living while others are busting their butts to make sure you live well.