May 18, 2005
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Pre-K Problems

GUESTS: Alvin Rosenfeld

HIGHLIGHT:

   Researchers at Yale's Child Study Center found pre-schoolers are three times as likely to be expelled from school than kids in kindergarten through 12th grade.

BODY:

   SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on a story that we first told you about on Tuesday. Researchers at Yale's Child Study Center found pre-schoolers are three times as likely to be expelled from school than kids in kindergarten through 12th grade.

   Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld is a child psychiatrist and the co-author of "The Overscheduled Child." Nice to see you. Good morning. When you see this study, do you think this is an indication that the kids are just out of control, or is it that they're just too young to be in school?

   DR. ALVIN ROSENFELD, CHILD PSYCHIATRIST: Well, I don't think we know what's going on. The study doesn't really help us with that. What it tell us is that kids are getting expelled more frequently at younger ages. I think that we're pushing kids to school. School used to start at seven, now it's starting at three. If it continues, pretty soon, moms will be taking lamaze and kids will be doing sort of pre-"Baby Einstein."

   You know, so I think part of it is that they're too young. But the interesting part of this study is it's not the young ones who are thrown out, it was the older ones. And what 5 and 6-year-olds were doing in pre-K is beyond me.

   O'BRIEN: Well, you know, what I thought was kind of interesting, that the 3-year-olds had a lower rate of being expelled, as you point out, than necessarily the 4-year-olds, which seemed surprising. I sort of thought the younger you were, the more likely you just weren't ready for school. There was indication in the study, one of the conclusions that they made, was that if there was a child psychologist working with the kids, then the kids were 50 percent less likely to be expelled. Is that because these kids, then, have psychological problems?

   ROSENFELD: Well, I think probably many of them do have psychological problems. But if it was a child psychiatrist or child psychologist involved with seeing -- with working with the teachers, they were less often expelled. But I think that many kids this young have emotional problems and it's our duty as a society, if they're identified as such, to get them some early interventions. Furthermore, I think that psychiatrists and psychologists can help a teacher understand what's going on.

   So you move from a teacher being overwhelmed or frightened about what she's seeing to a teacher who understands, going to be more sympathetic. And God knows that pre-K and kindergarten teachers are probably the nicest, kindest people in the universe. So they don't want to expel a kid. But they -- if they're stressed, if they're overwhelmed, they need some help.

   O'BRIEN: The study found that boys expelled at a rate four and a half times higher than girls. And that didn't surprise me, because I think boys at that age are sort of a little more antsy. What did surprise me was the racial breakdown, where you saw African-American children were being expelled at twice the rate of Latino and Caucasian and five times the rate of Asian children. How do you explain those numbers?

   ROSENFELD: I don't really explain it. I think we'd have to look more closely at the families, but we'd also have to look at the socioeconomic groups, because I bet it's connected to being indigent. It's an interesting question. I'd love to know more, why Asian kids are first of all are expelled so much less often and are so much more often seen at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. So there's something that Asian families are doing that we can learn a lot from.

   O'BRIEN: What's the impact on a 3, or a 4 or a 5-year-old who's kicked out of pre-school? Do you think there's a serious impact or are they...

   ROSENFELD: Of course there is. How would you feel if you're rejected? And not only the kid, how do the parents react? If your child was expelled -- expelled from pre-K, you'd feel awful. You'd feel you were a failure as a parent. And I think that leads to a life-long interaction that's not particularly good for the kid. So I think we need more mental health services, we need more intervention, because this is our chance. If we can intervene in pre-K and prevent 50 percent of these kids from being expelled, imagine how much money, time and suffering we spare kids in our society.

   O'BRIEN: So you read some really good news into the study, in that it's an opportunity.

   ROSENFELD: If we take the opportunity and use it constructively.

   O'BRIEN: Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, nice to see you, thanks.

   ROSENFELD: Pleasure seeing you, Soledad.

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