The Parents As Teachers (PAT) Program is the title of a seemingly benign, ‘voluntary’ home visitation program designed to help young parents of pre-school age children, birth to 5 years of age, make sure their children are ‘healthy’ and ‘ready to learn’ before entering school.

The program targets parents and their pre-school children, ages birth to 3 years.

Sold to young parents through places such as the local public school system, through pediatric visits, Health and Human Services, Head Start, and through referrals of ‘friends’ and neighbors, the program uses intermediaries, called parent educators, to gain access to the home and educate the parent – or rather, re-educate the parent. 

Originally aimed at ‘low income’ or ‘disadvantaged families’, the program has moved on to target so-called ‘higher income parents’ who are supposedly ‘intelligent and well-educated’ enough to see the wisdom of input from professionals on early childhood brain development.

A database of information, created and maintained on the family and the child, tracks observations and assessments of the parent, the child, and parent-child interactions.

“Parents as Teachers National Center has (sic) developed a toolkit to assist staff in identifying instruments for use in the screening, assessment, and evaluation of young children and their parents.  The toolkit contains 83 measures of child and parent outcomes.”[1]

Outcomes?  What outcomes and who decided what they should be?   Screening, assessment, and evaluation – sounds like an employment or medical process, doesn’t it?

From their ‘Outcomes Measurement Toolkits’[2] resource pages come toolkit titles such as:

• Evaluating parent-child interaction: Videotaping as a vital data collection method
• The Kempe Family Stress Inventory: A review - Child abuse and neglect
• Assessing and screening preschoolers: Psychological and educational dimensions
• Starting Early Starting Smart Early Childhood Measurement Toolkit

 These and others are available from varied sources, such as Administration for Children and Families, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Head Start, Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), The Casey Foundation, and The World Bank.

[Yes, really -“Assessing cognitive development in early childhood”, E.L. Grigorenko & R.J. Sternberg, (1999) Washington, DC: The World Bank].

Apparently parental and child outcomes are very important to quite a few people.

A Brief History of Parents as Teachers

From Chapter 7 of Brave New Schools, by Berit Kjos:

‘…Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General of the U.N., said in an address to the Executive Board of UNICEF,   

“Until fairly recently, in most societies, the responsibility for child development rested entirely with parents.... This is still largely true, but it is changing... The process of child development has to be the concern of society as a whole--on the national and international level.  From the very beginning, the leaders of UNICEF... clearly understood this...."  

In 1981, American educators began to implement UNICEF's vision.  The Missouri Department of Education launched the first government program to actually tell parents how to raise their children. Under the misleading title, Parents as Teachers (PAT), it was introduced as a voluntary project to help disadvantaged children.  That the state mandated PAT for all children in all schools in 1985 came as no surprise.’ (p. 167)’[3]

Note:  At the time the above book was written (1992) the Parents as Teachers programs had expanded to 40 states and 7 foreign countries – it is now in all 50 states, Washington DC, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and 8 foreign countries: Australia, Belize, Canada, China, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. 

‘Parent educators’ (intermediaries) trained from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005 was 6,652.

As of June 2005, there were 3,039 PAT program sites.  Oklahoma finally beat Texas at something –Oklahoma has 94 program sites, compared to Texas’ 91 program sites.  Click here to see Oklahoma locations: OPAT[4]

 Missouri, home to the PAT program, wins the numbers prize with a whopping 564 program sites.

From Charlotte Iserbyt’s the deliberate dumbing down of america (1999) [5]

“An article by Laura Rogers, entitled “In Loco Parentis, Part II – The ‘Parents as Teachers’ program Lives On” was published in the September 1992 issue of Chronicles…. Excerpts from her excellent article follow:

For the uninitiated, the PAT [Parents as Teachers] program was begun in Missouri in 1981, ostensibly for the purpose of curbing the high dropout rate and winning back parental support for the public school system.  In 1985, the state legislature mandated that the PAT program be offered to all schools and children in Missouri and since then the PAT program has been proposed in at least forty other states.  Simply put, the program pivots on assigning to all parents and children a “certified parent educator.”  This state employee evaluates the child (under the guise of educational screening), assigns the child a computer code classification,  and initiates a computer file that the state will use to track the child for the rest of his or her life.  All of the computer code designations label the child to some degree “at risk,” and there is no classification for “normal.”  The state agent conducts periodic home and school visits to check on the child and the family, dispensing gratis such things as nutritional counseling, mental health services, and even food.  Schools under the PAT program provide free day and overnight care.  The “certified parent” might forbid the biological parents to spank their child, and might prescribe, if the child is deemed “unhappy”, psychological counseling or a drug such as Ritalin.  If the parents refuse the recommended services or drugs, the state may remove the child from the home, place him in a residential treatment center, and force the parents to enroll in family counseling for an indefinite period.” (p. 301-302)

The Parents as Teachers National Center is advocating for legislation, which would expand the Parents as Teachers Program and other early childhood development bills.

S.503, the “Education Begins at Home Act”[6] designed ‘to expand Parents as Teachers programs and other quality programs of early childhood home visitation and for other purposes” introduced by Senators Bond (R-MO), Talent (R-MO) and DeWine (R-OH) in March, 2005.

Others to co-sponsor this bill include Senators Clinton (D-NY), Kerry (D-MA), Rockefeller (D-WV), and Stabenow (D-MI) -big clue here now, folks.

Some of the more egregious language in this bill:

"(1) To enable States to deliver services under

Parents as Teachers programs or other quality programs of early childhood home visitation, to pregnant women and parents of children from birth until entry into kindergarten in order to promote parents’ ability to support their children’s optimal cognitive, language, social-emotional, and physical development.

(2) To improve Early Head Start programs carried out under section 645A of the Head Start Act (42 U.S.C. 9840a).

(3) To expand Parents as Teachers programs, or other quality programs of early childhood home visitation, so as to more effectively reach and serve families with English language learners.

(4) To expand Parents as Teachers programs,or other quality programs of early childhood home visitation, so as to more effectively reach and serve families serving in the military."

20 SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) ELIGIBLE FAMILY.—the term "eligible family" means—

(A) A woman who is pregnant; or

(B) A parent or primary caregiver of a child who is from birth until entry into kindergarten.

(2) HOME VISITATION.—the term "home visitation" means services provided in the permanent or temporary residence, or in other familiar surroundings, of the individual receiving such services.”

[The House of Representatives has a companion bill, H.R. 3268,[7] also called the “Education Begins at Home Act]

A phone call to Senator Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) office confirmed that S. 503 was referred to the HELP (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committee and appeared dead. 

However, she indicated that it could be re-introduced later.  I lodged my concerns – government access to any family with a child in the home; access to any pregnant woman; tracking of children from birth to kindergarten; intruding on family autonomy; unwanted and unwarranted intrusion into U.S. citizen’s homes.

We ask and encourage others to contact their Senators and ask that this dangerous legislation remains ‘dead.’

Senator Jim Inhofe’s Washington DC number is (202) 224-4721

Senator Tom Coburn’s Washington DC number is (202) 224-5754

Click on this link to find your Representative, here.[8]

The Vision of Parents as Teachers reads:

“All children will learn, grow and develop to realize their full potential.”

It is neither the right nor the responsibility of any self-appointed PAT parent educator to correct, usurp, undermine, change, or report any individual’s living conditions, family traditions, teaching styles, parenting style, eating habits, discipline methods, or worldviews.  It is neither the right nor responsibility of any PAT staff person to make sure anyone else’s child ‘learns, grows, and develops’ according to prescripted outcomes– it is the parent’s job. 

  It is a parent’s responsibility and a parent’s right to ‘raise up a child in the way he should go’ – not the States and certainly not ‘professional intermediaries.’

Say “No thanks” to the Parents as Teachers Programs.

Raise your own child.