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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on the Chicago preschool vocabulary gap; the PBS report is embedded above.
In cash-strapped Chicago, schools are facing cuts at every level. This includes programs for Chicago’s littlest students: preschoolers.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) provides free preschool for about 30,000 three and four years olds, but that’s not even half of those who need early education.
With too many preschool-aged kids and not enough money, CPS faced a difficult choice: Should it serve more students but spend less on each one? Or should it spend more money but serve fewer students? In the end, it chose to serve as many students as it could, even though that meant programs would last only 2.5 hours a day and would be closed in the summer. This situation creates a host of challenges for working moms in Chicago.
In this podcast, we examine three specific cases of mothers fighting to maintain balance.
John Merrow, Cat McGrath and David Wald of Learning Matters report.
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May 5, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Wendy Zacuto says:
My own children attended public schools when we could not afford private, and private when we could almost afford private. We have dug deep and raised lots of money to support our children’s education. I’m afraid the truth today is that public schools are no longer free. Parents must become skilled at fundraising to support our public schools. There is nothing more important that the child, this child, these children. Waiting for overhaul to a broken system will not serve our schools in the meantime.