That was then: Preschool: Just a passing phase? 

With “universal” preschool a hot topic in California at this time, the comments of Speaker of the Assembly Jesse M. Unruh in the October 1965 issue of California School Boards are especially poignant:

“There is nothing magic in good pre-school training. Thousands, even millions, of parents are doing that very thing today. For their lucky children, pre-school is a happy amusement but not a scholastic necessity. For the unfortunate, however, it is a necessity, and therein lies the basic justification for state action.

We are trying to do what all parents would do if they had the chance, the ability, the inclination — even just the time. We are trying, in other words, to raise a future generation of parents where this problem no longer exists. It will not be an easy thing.

But on the other hand, it should not go on indefinitely either. Unless Americans of the future want to turn pre-school training over to someone else — and I do not believe that they do — a better educated generation of parents will have little or no need for such help. …

Unlike the regular program in the public schools, there should, at some time, be a point in the future when compensatory education is no longer needed. Of all the specific programs, pre-school is likely to be the last of these. … Finally, as an entire generation of needy children pass[es] through effective pre-school training, the necessity for even it should diminish considerably.”