Posted on 08/26/2014 6:33:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
After President Obama in his 2013 State of the Union address called for a new federal entitlement for taxpayer-funded free preschool or pre-K for all 4-year-olds, we thought his idea would be quickly discredited, not only by its enormous cost, but even more importantly by the overwhelming weight of research proving the lack of any long-term benefit from such programs.
Now we are dismayed to learn from Politico that a dozen Republican-governed states are expanding state-based pre-K programs or are planning to do so next year. And in Washington, some Republicans are offering bipartisan support to a pre-K bill drafted by two of the Congress' biggest liberals, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), both of whom are retiring at the end of this year.
Why are these Republicans willing to accept Obama's claim that pre-K "works" by producing big benefits in a child's later life? In fact, the science tells us that pre-K provides, at best, a small temporary benefit that cannot be measured beyond the third grade.
And those small temporary benefits were found only among low-income or at-risk children. There is no science that even pretends to show that middle-class kids benefit from attending preschool instead of being cared for by their mothers at home.
These Republican governors seem to think they can defeat the Democrats by adopting one of Obama's favorite programs, pre-K, which he has urged for years without success. Despite the high profile of these Republican pre-K salesmen, we still haven't seen any evidence that pre-K benefits children or accomplishes any of the goals it promises. Like the classic TV ad, I ask, where's the beef?
They don't call it daycare anymore, and of course they don't call it babysitting, which it really is. The new gimmick label is pre-K, meaning before kindergarten.
The daycare advocates like to cite as models for success the so-called Perry Preschool Project and the Abecedarian Project. Those two projects took place a half century ago and used highly trained teachers under optimum conditions.
One project treated only 58 3- and 4-year-old children, and the other only 57. The Perry favorable results have never been replicated despite many subsequent attempts, so that study is not scientifically credible.
The proclaimed purpose of pre-K is to close the gap between kids from high-income and low-income households. There is no evidence that pre-K can accomplish that.
The liberals like to say that pre-K "investments" (that's the liberals' synonym for taxes) save money later on. All studies show that Head Start and all the early interventions do not achieve what they promise, and they "fade out" at least by the third grade.
The Department of Health and Human Services Head Start Impact Study tracked 3- and 4-year-olds from entering Head Start through kindergarten and first grade, all the way to the end of the third grade. The conclusion was that Head Start had little to no effect on cognitive, social-emotional or health outcomes of participating children.
The principal goals of the billions of federal tax dollars poured into public schools during the George W. Bush administration were to raise U.S. scores on international tests and to close the gap between high-income and low-income students. All that spending was a failure on both counts. The only thing pre-K accomplished was to provide daycare services for single moms, the majority of whom voted for Obama.
Head Start was based on the assumption that government schools could compensate children for the disadvantage of being poor. It's time to face up to the fact that the children are poor mainly because they don't live in a nuclear family with their own father and mother.
The problem we should address is the decline in marriage. There is no substitute for the enormous advantage to children who grow up in a home with their own mother and father.
A better formula for helping kids to achieve in school would be to stop giving out financial handouts that operate as incentives to women to have babies without marriage and will therefore turn to Big Brother Government for financial support. Pre-K is another anti-marriage incentive.
The liberal Brookings Institution admitted that the supposed benefits of pre-K programs often don't last even until the end of kindergarten. Brookings's lead research analyst commented, "I see these findings as devastating for advocates of the expansion of state pre-K programs."
It doesn't matter whether pre-K money is run by Democrats or Republicans. We shouldn't "invest" any more taxpayers' money in pie-in-the-sky projects that make adults feel sanctimonious but do no long-term help for the kids, and enable their moms to join the majority of single mothers who voted for Obama.
One of the best things we can do for pre-kindergarten children is to make sure we don't hang trillions of dollars of debt around their necks.
No, it really is forcibly removing the child from the home to make him a good servant of THE STATE.
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
-- Vladimir Lenin
What about K and post-K?
Many republicans are also left-wing fascists and totally support the left-wing agenda, just look at the US House and Senate republicans.
The only case I might see made for Pre-K would be one limited to children whose families don’t speak English as a first language. Then pre-K could get the kids fluent in English before Kindergarten so they could be mainstreamed in first grade.
But there is no reason for everyone to need pre-K to get ready for Kindergarten.
Yeah some give theirs up for 12 and sometimes 16.
“Pre-K” is a multifaceted agenda.
It is, as you say, a way of “getting the kids early”.
But it is also a pander to and promotion of working and/or “single” moms.
They want to make it easier to be a “single mom” in order to secure this ever increasing voting block,
and also to make it a less undesirable condition, incentivizing yet MORE “single moms”.
My Day Care and Pre-K was called Mom, Sunday School & Vacation Bible School.
Studies indicate that for pre-K to be truly effective, and supplementary program called pre-pre-K should be introduced.
Because voters like "free" daycare.
I started my kids reading just after they turned three. By the time they were six they were reading college-level material.
That's how I see it. In my post-retirement Adventures in Urban Substitute Teaching, I very occasionally went to Head Start preschool classes. First myth busted....the program, toys, educational materials, activities, are beyond belief. The kids also have specialists evaluating special needs, providing music, art, and phys ed, and get two meals plus two healthy snacks. They get toothbrushing lessons! Still in diapers....toilet training. The kids are overwhelmed with a very full schedule of learning, team/group activities, and educational playtime. The ones I was in, the parents actually rebelled and took them home after lunch for down time and to be able to schedule the naps when the children actually wanted to rest. The day is scheduled down to the minute, and keeping the schedule is actually upsetting to some kids.
It's a harder day to teach than is advanced HS math. And what's the point? Well, the kids are in a situation where the state replaces the parent. And the parents don't all want it....it's a requirement for those collecting benefits.
You'll never get rid of it. There's an elitist myth that poor people can't or won't take care of their own children. So the state is in effect doing what communist countries used to do....forcibly taking over raising them.
JMHO
——My Day Care and Pre-K was called Mom, Sunday School & Vacation Bible School.——
your mom must have been one of those bitter religious clingers nuts...
Betchca she even made you non approved obama lunches too...
Oh Yes. Always fresh home made cookies or cup cakes, even Peanut butter sandwiches sometimes.
Taxpayer-funded = Socialism
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.