Page 60 - E-Modul Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris SD

In recent years, however, preschool’s educational purpose and potential
have been increasingly recognized, and this recognition contributes to the

blurring of the preschool-elementary boundary. The two spheres now have
substantial reasons to strive for greater continuity and collaboration. One

impetus is that mandated accountability requirements, particularly third grade

testing, exert pressures on schools and teachers at K–2,25 who in turn look to
teachers of younger children to help prepare students to demonstrate the

required proficiencies later. A related factor is the growth of state-funded
prekindergarten, located in schools or other community settings, which

collectively serves more than a million 3- and 4-year-olds.

Millions more children are in Head Start programs and child care programs
that meet state prekindergarten requirements and receive state preK dollars. Head

Start, serving more than 900,000 children nationwide, is now required to coordinate
with the public schools at the state level.26 Title I dollars support preschool

education and services for some 300,000 children. Nationally, about 35 percent of

all 4-year-olds are in publicly supported prekindergarten programs.27 For its part,
the world of early care and education stands to gain in some respects from a closer

relationship with the K–12 system. Given the shortage of affordable, high-quality
programs for children under 5 and the low compensation for those staff, advocates

see potential benefits to having more 4-year-olds, and perhaps even 3-yearolds,
receive services in publicly funded schooling. Proponents also hope that a closer

relationship between early-years education and the elementary grades would lead

to enhanced alignment and each sphere’s learning from the other,28 thus resulting
in greater continuity and coherence across the preK–3 span.

At the same time, however, preschool educators have some fears about the
prospect of the K–12 system absorbing or radically reshaping education for 3-, 4-,

and 5-year-olds, especially at a time when pressures in public schooling are intense

and often run counter to the needs of young children. Many early childhood
educators are already quite concerned about the current climate of increased high-

stakes testing adversely affecting children in grades K–3, and they fear extension
of these effects to even younger children. Even learning standards, though generally

supported in principle in the early childhood world,29 are sometimes questioned in

55