Massachusetts Preschools

Finding affordable quality preschool in Massachusetts is increasingly a challenge for many families. A lot of the criticism that we at Massachusetts Preschools receive is that our own search for quality preschool often turns up schools that are less than affordable for many. Several parents and members have pointed out that even the media and press ranging from local newspapers to Boston Magazine focus on schools that cost more than ten thousand dollars per year and are located in the Boston Metro area. While Massachusetts Preschools actively works on finding quality preschools across the state - we admitted fall prey to the same problem. Quality appears to be expensive. But is this the case?

We have pointed to two of the highest quality preschools in the state, the Preschool at Happy Hollow School in Framingham, MA and the North Shore Nursery School in Beverly, MA both offer programs that fall well below the $10,000/year threshold. The problem is that schools like these a few and far between. The Massachusetts preschools seem to fall into five categories:

• High quality but “expensive” private preschools schools
• High quality and affordable private preschools
• High quality public preschools
• Low quality public preschools
• Low quality private preschools

Massachusetts offers a generous offering of high quality “expensive” private preschools. While these schools are often difficult to gain admission to because they are under such high demand - the cost of these schools is just as real a barrier.

High quality and affordable private preschools, like their close cousin high quality public preschools are simply too few and far between. It is this group that is most limited in Massachusetts and under the greatest demand. High quality and affordable private preschools have a distinct advantage over their public counterparts in that many of them rely on donations and dedicated staff to allow them to keep tuition low. Unfortunately the public preschools do not have this option and therefore without the support of a strong school administration and local support of preschool, most (but not all) public preschools are grossly underfunded and over enrolled.

The problems of quality public preschool has been exacerbated by the “No Child Left Behind Act” which has resulted in public school systems introducing drills and “teaching to the test” in order to get an early start on preparing children for the MCAS. This is truly sad in that every quality preschool teacher knows that all of the research showing the extraordinary benefits of preschool are undermined by “teaching to the test”. This is turn has further undermined public preschools as high quality, experienced and dedicated teachers flee the public system.

This combination has lead to the creation of the largest group of Massachusetts preschools: low quality public and low quality private “preschools”. The flight of quality teachers and underfunding of public preschools has undermined quality and unfortunately lead many quality public systems degrading into low quality academic drill programs. The flip side of this degradation of our public preschools is the introduction of cost cutting private equity firms and large multinational corporations into the void. The “corporate” preschool are attempting to profit from the degradation of the public school system by taking advantage of the dire need of children and their parents. Most recently, a Boston-based consulting company once run by Mitt Romney, bought Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Inc. for $1.3 billion dollars. Bright Horizons has been known for its “day care factory” approach to early childhood education and this is only likely to increase as Bain cuts corner even further to prepare its new acquisition for a quick sell in a few years.

So what are we left with? We have just two choices. In the long run - fund universal preschool for all Massachusetts children. This will have the effect of increasing access and quality of the public preschools throughout the state. This in turn will put pressure on high quality private schools to keep tuition affordable as “market” pressure increase because parent have more options. Further more, this increase market pressure will force the low quality private preschool out of the market as the high quality private preschools and their public counterparts remove the financial incentive to offer a low quality program.

In the sort term, we need to work together to identify that small group of schools that fall into the affordable high quality preschools - both private and public. Please lend a hand. E-mail your suggestions to masspreschools at massachusettspreschools dot org (replace the “at” with the @ sign and dot with a period(.) - we have been inundated with junk mail). We need particular help in the areas outside of Boston Metro. We are sorely lacking on the Cape and Western Massachusetts.

Tags: massachusetts preschools, preschool ma, preschools