I could date myself and talk about the fact that kindergarten in the not so distant past was the place where formal learning began, not the place that confirmed whether necessary learning had already occurred.  Now pre-school has rapidly become the crucial piece in preparing students for successful learning in the years ahead.  This article takes this assertion as simply the fact of reality - kids need pre-kindergarten preparation.  But why is this assertion even there at all?  What has changed in the last 40 years or less that pre-school now is a necessity for successful learning?

There are lots of answers to that, I'm sure.  More single-parent families where the child has to go to pre-school or day care because the parent is working?  More dual-income families where both parents are working?  Less funding for education so that class sizes are larger?  More children from other cultures and language groups that struggle to keep up in an English-based classroom?  More material that needs to be covered to meet state performance criteria and exams that determine future funding for the school?  Less time for children to do work out of classroom because of extra-curricular activities?  I'm sure the list could go on and on.

The problem I have is that this solution - mandatory pre-school - assumes that the status quo is unchangeable - either for practical or ideological reasons.  It assumes that there aren't other ways to provide children with the learning opportunities in their early years that make their learning in later years more intuitive and satisfying.  It assumes once again that the State must take over a role that has traditionally been entrusted to the parents, rather than examining why the parents may not be fulfilling that role in the same way - or with the same levels of success - as earlier generations.  It seems to identify a newish problem - underperforming students - without examining how this problem developed.  

I think this lies at the root of many of the core ideological battles that our country is wracked with.  An inability - or unwillingness - to examine the condition of our culture today and determine whether or not there have been changes in it that are detrimental.  The assumption is too easy to say that this is the way things are and there's no way to change them.  But of course that's not true - otherwise there wouldn't be calls for new legislation and programming like the one this article supports.  There are ways to make changes.  But basing those changes on not altering the underlying issues at all is only going to drive us more and more down an artificial road where other people dictate more and more of our lives because we are unable to fulfill our obligations and duties in them.  Or because our obligations and duties are being redefined.

Know thyself was a maxim of Greek philosophy.  It would seem as crucial today as it was back then - both individually and as a culture and society.