How to Build a More Effective Parents as Teachers Program
I’ve criticized the Parents as Teachers program for, among other things, giving services to kids who don’t need help and sending a stiff bill to taxpayers. I’m probably the only one who’s happy to see Parents as Teachers take a $4 million cut in Missouri’s budget.
I don’t like Parents as Teachers the way it has been run for the past couple decades, but I’m optimistic that it can evolve into a better program. Parents as Teachers could move in one of two directions to control costs and better serve families. It would also be possible to split it into two separate programs with different missions.
Here’s the first route Parents as Teachers could take: Continue to serve all interested families, including wealthy ones, but do away with home visits. A Parents as Teachers educator could be stationed at a public library or in a public school. Parents could make appointments to bring their kids to the educator, and there might be drop-in hours too. Some services could be provided to multiple families at once. For example, an educator could teach a group of parents about activities for toddlers, and only parents who still had questions would consult with the educator one-on-one. Holding sessions in a public building would allow educators to direct parents to other resources (such as children’s books in a library), but its main advantage would be efficiency. Home visits to individual families are expensive — and also unnecessary, because educators give much of the same advice to everyone.
The other option is to model Parents as Teachers on the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Baby College program, providing intensive help to the people who need it most. Baby College serves disadvantaged families by restricting enrollment to residents of a neighborhood; Parents as Teachers could likewise confine itself to poor neighborhoods, or it could limit enrollment by family income. Baby College incorporates home visits, but it also brings parents together for a class one morning a week. The group sessions allow parents to get support from each other, and they also allow Baby College to bring in outside speakers. The once-a-week format means Baby College can reinforce what it teaches in a short period of time, unlike Parents as Teachers’ home visits, which might be spread apart by a few months. A Parents as Teachers program resembling Baby College would still be expensive, but at least it would be targeted, and families would get more out of the experience.
I am perfectly happy to see the program get a budget cut. I say cut the budgets of every government program in the USA at every level, military excepted.
PAT does have group programs much like you described. My youngest son went to one just yesterday. They don’t have them often, because of budget cuts (again, fine with me), but they do have them.
PAT was never intended, planned, or proposed to be a welfare program. You advocate making it one, and I disagree. Cut the whole program if you want, but don’t make it just one more thing my tax dollars get to support but which I can’t use for my children.
PAT’s program is about assisting parents and watching children learn and develop as they grow. It is absolutely not suited to just do as a group setting in a short- eriod of time. At these ages, children can be very different with just small differences in ages. The educator does not give the exact same presentation to a 3-month old’s family as they give a 4-month old’s. The purpose is to help parents with good advice and follow the child as they get older to monitor their progress.
You, nor anyone else, has any idea whether families “would get more out of the experience” of a group setting than from a home visit.
I hate to be defending a social program, and I really don’t care if its budget is cut and it is scaled back dramatically or eliminated. But before you advocate “evolving” it into a better program, you need to fundamentally understand what it is about.
Comment by David Stokes — January 22, 2010 @ 12:34 p.m.
“military excepted.”
We should cut the military’s budget *first*.
Comment by Eric D. Dixon — January 22, 2010 @ 1:09 p.m.
I do not know if the program deserved to have their budget cut or not. What I do know is that this program helps parents identify problems that may be much more costly down the road for anyone that pays health insurance and tax dollars.
I fail to see how this bill to the tax payers is so “stiff”. I see it as preventative maintenance, which most people see as being much more cost-effective than reacting to a problem that has grown much larger over many years.
Comment by DaveG — January 25, 2010 @ 4:39 p.m.
Here here DaveG! I have been told that Gov. Nixon has proposed a 13.2% cut this year after a 10% cut last year!
The funding needs for helping parents spot concerns and address them while they are small could be easily found if we would promote the Drug Court program in Missouri. http://www.modrugcourts.org/showpage.php?page=5
Let’s spend freely the less money on situations that carry less traumatic and costly consequences (Parents as Teachers & Drug Courts) instead of high cost incarceration with terrible recidivism returns!
Comment by Doug — January 29, 2010 @ 1:04 p.m.