Why We Do It

Please watch this Ted by one of my most dedicated colleagues, experienced, open- hearted mentors, viral changemakers and impactful thought leaders I’ve met on my journey.

Take a moment to listen to one of the best “Humans of NY” , Dr. Nadia Lopez. @thelopezeffect

Research studies show and our founder agrees, that EARLY CHILDHOOD PLAY and exposure to BOOKS & STEAM* related activities and environments can significantly increase cognitive, academic & social-emotional intelligence.

The School to prison pipeline starts in preschool

The o-3 year time frame serves as the foundation for 90% of early development in babies and children. The environmental exposure in which a child of this age range grows in will undoubtedly influence and in many cases dictate the trajectory of their quality of life for a long time, if not a lifetime. According to huffpost.com 88% of students who struggle with reading in first grade will still struggle in fourth grade and those who struggle in fourth grade, are four times more likely to drop out of school altogether.

A study conducted by The Literacy Project confirmed that 85 % of juveniles that come in contact with the court system are functionally illiterate. Research also shows that 70% of adults incarcerated can not read past a fourth grade level.

Do you see where we’re going with this?

Being that Black and Latinx folk account for more than half of the for profit prison industrial complex population, its no wonder illiteracy is especially prevalent in the same poor, over populated and under funded communities these prisoners were born into and attended kindergarten in just 2 or less decades earlier.

If you didn’t know any better you’d think Black and Latinx children were just slow and lazy. That they couldn’t apply themselves and lacked the basic fundamental ability to learn, that they were just inherently stupid. How else would you explain them making up more than half of all preschoolers dealing with out-of-school suspension nationwide?

Yes, you read that right. Four & Five year old black and brown babies being regarded as more disruptive, more difficult to teach and therefore deserving of more punishment at earlier ages than we’ve ever recorded before as observed by The US Department of Education for Civil Rights.

Black & Latinx early learners are expected to take full accountability for their otherwise “normal“ age -appropriate and silly behaviors by spending even more time out of the classroom, further widening the already exorbitant “education gap.”

This system seems to be doing our children a lot more harm then good by even the most courteous measure.

If this weren’t enough evidence to suggest that lack of early literacy instruction at home coupled with lack of qualified teachers and individual instruction at school have more to do with the ridiculous systematic “zero tolerance“ behavioral policies that funnel more and more of our children unjustly into police & foster care custody than they care to admit, follow the paper trail of students who struggle with literacy past the fourth grade.

Follow them into junior high school and high school.

Sorry to say that when it comes to literacy, we have to agree with readingrockets.org and break it to ya that ” late bloomers usually just wilt.”

Take for example, the Yankee Stadium area of The Bronx.

Unfortunately, exposure to STEAM powered environments, enriching experiences, learning opportunities, tools and resources are not a consistent part of their average public school curriculum, which is where the majority of local children attend (and until recently weren't even allowed to attend until the age of 5 since Universal Pre K for all was not available until 2013).

So from birth to 5, if you can not afford the hefty price tag of a private, high quality, attentive, kind and loving establishment or nanny to care for AND teach your child the non verbal & verbal foundation for literacy…what does that mean for your kid and his or her early childhood developmental experience ?

Ask our founder and she’ll tell you it means you have to become that person yourself or totally miss out on making the most significant impact on your child’s earliest and most pivotal developmental phase.

5 years old is still the “legal” start age for kindergarten in many states that don't offer a FREE Universal Pre K option. Currently serving only 22% of 4 year olds and 3 % of 3 year olds, state funded Pre-K programs annual budgets vary from $1600 per child in North Carolina to more than $10,000 per child in New Jersey. This difference alone make it so these schools don’t entirely qualify as UNIVERSAL since not EVERY student is eligible. There are only truly 3 states that offer FREE Universal Pre-K for all four year old children. Twelve states to be have NO STATE FUNDING at all.

But this issue is no longer just a poor Black and Brown people issue, even well off Caucasian parents who can afford top dollar private institutions from day one, are increasingly coming to terms that neither they or their children are satisfied with the “caliber” of education their children are experiencing. Bewildered by the constant experimentation with new age curriculum, constant testing and rising competition from black and brown children who do not live in poverty, otherwise enthusiastic parents feel like they simply can’t keep up. Others parents who underestimate the curriculum, are ill prepared and entitled will do whatever it takes to get their kids into these spaces by any means necessary, including illegal ones i.e. Varsity Blues. To this point, we can not help but note that again, Black and Latinx parents, teachers & coaches involved in education fraud are receiving punishments much graver than their Caucasian counterparts. When does it end?

How ironic is it that we know development of the brain is almost fully formed by 3 years old, yet we wait until 5 to start school? How in just 4 short years aka K-3rd grade, do we expect children who have had little to no early literacy training to have somehow magically internalized a bunch of totally random sounds and symbols to a level of test taking mastery and to do it all with a smile on?

It is widely accepted among educators and researchers that from K-3rd grade children are LEARNING TO READ, and from 4th grade on, they are READING TO LEARN.

If this is the true rubric of how school is set up why aren’t parents being made specifically aware of what their role is in preparing their children for Kindergarten?

I guarantee the list is more complex than you can imagine.

However, it’s not complex because it’s difficult, but because the list takes a lot of intention and practice to effectively implement. If you only begin reading to your child in Kindergarten, when they are already expected in most public schools to already have 2200 words in their vocabulary by then, you are already light years behind.

Getting a child “ready for school” is less about the four or five hundred dollars (or more) you spend every September and more about what you’ve exposed them to in the 4 or 5 years before they enter any school building.

Furthermore, enriching education experiences are often out of reach for many families in Urban communities due to the lack of access to the internet, information on where to go, required distance for travel, cost associated with participation and overwhelmingly large amounts of people ALL wanting the best for their children, waiting hours in line to compete for a sliver of it. If you live in the NYC tri state area and have school aged children, you probably been there before. That being said, let us over stand the value of child led learning experiences outside of their everyday schoolhouse that allows us to show them what the (real) world has to offer outside of a classroom textbook!

This exposure is the type of stuff the real genius is made of! Ask any genius!

Joining The Homeschooling The Hood Community (HTHC) rids you of worrying about the what, where, when, and how you’re going to make it happen and gives YOU the opportunity to make a lifelong impact on the WHY.