Items Vol. 20 No. 2 (1966)

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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

VOLUME 20 . NUMBER 2 . JUNE 1966 230 PARK AVENUE' NEW YORK, N. Y. 10017

PRESCHOOL EDUCATION: REPORT ON A CONFERENCE by Lloyd N. Morrisett¡ FERMENT in preschool education is readily observable and easy to explain. A combination of urgent need, ideas, and money has created a climate highly favorable to research and action. On February 7-9 the Council's Committee on Learning and the Educational Process 1 sponsored a conference on preschool education to assist in assessment of what is known and what needs to be known in order to improve early educational programs. The conference was held at the University of Chicago's Center for Continuing Education and was attended by 37 scientists, practitioners of early childhood education, and interested observers.2 The proceedings of the con• The author is Vice-President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. A former member of the staff of the Council, he has served on a number of its committees and is currently a member of the Committee on Learning and the Educational Process, which sponsored the conference that he reports on here. 1 The committee consists of Lee J. Cronbach, Stanford University (chairman); Richard C. Atkinson, Stanford University; Eleanor J. Gibson, Cornell University; Jerome Kagan, Harvard University; Evan R. Keislar, University of California, Los Angeles; George A. Miller, Harvard University; Lloyd N. Morrisett; staff, Rowland L. Mitchell, Jr. 2 In addition to Messrs. Atkinson, Cronbach, Keislar, Morrisett, Mrs. Gibson, and the staff of the committee, the participants included: Donald M. Baer, University of Kansas; Alfred L. Baldwin, and Clare Baldwin, New York University; Carl E. Bereiter, University of Illinois; Bettye M. Caldwell, Upstate Medical Center, State University of New York, Syracuse; Courtney B. Cazden, Burton L. White, and Sheldon H. White, Harvard University; Cynthia P. Deutsch, New York Medical College; Mario Fantini, and Marjorie Martus, Ford Foundation; Barbara D. Finberg, Carnegie Corporation of New York; William Fowler, University of Chicago Nursery School; Joseph A. Glick, Yale University; Eugene S. Gollin, Fels Research Institute; Edmund W. Gordon, Albert Einstein School of Medicine, Yeshiva University; Susan W. Gray, George Peabody College for Teachers; Robert D. Hess, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Fred L. Strodtbeck, University of Chicago; Louis Levine, Yeshiva University; Eleanor E. Maccoby, Stanford University; Omar K. Moore, University of Pittsburgh; Shirley G. Moore, University of Minnesota;

ference are expected to be published next year in a volume edited by Robert D. Hess of the University of Chicago, who with Alfred L. Baldwin of New York University and the writer planned the conference for the committee. The need for more knowledge and better practice in preschool education springs from many sources. Most pressing is the need to help the children of poverty to break out of the cycle of inadequate education, low occupational skill, low pay. It is all too obvious that many children in low income and minority groups neither have adequate educational opportunities nor are able to take full advantage of the meager opportunities they have. One forward step is to give these very young children better preparation to benefit from standard school practice. In Operation Head Start the United States has committed itself to this effort in a massive way. The first year of the project was 1965, and the Office of Economic Opportunity reports that 561,000 children were involved in programs costing a total of $94,500,000. The former figure is to be compared with a 1964 nursery school enrollment of 971,000 and a kindergarten enrollment of 2,716,000. While the needs of the disadvantaged are among the strongest factors motivating interest in preschool education, they by no means provide the sole motivation. The last decade has seen education at all levels become the subject of intense public interest. Curriculum reform Glen Nimnicht, New Nursery School, Colorado State College; Maya Pines, New York City; Nancy Rambusch, Program for the Disadvantaged. Board of Education, Mount Vernon, N.Y.; Halbert B. Robinson. and Emily G. Willerman, University of North Carolina; Clarence Sherwood. Action for Boston Community Development Project; and David P. Weikart, Perry Pre-School Project. Ypsilanti Public Schools.

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