My current issue is publicly funded preschool. None of my children attended preschool, and all are fine students and most are socially well adjusted. Preschool would not have made any of them perform better in first grade or beyond. But high quality preschools do help our most at-risk children. Any old preschool won’t do. Anywho, we have high quality preschools being pushed in our state, Alabama. There are not enough of them for all Alabama children to get in. Thus, there is a selection process. If the schools are federally funded Title I schools, then children have to meet certain criteria to get in. THE FEDS are forcing Alabama schools to accept FOREIGN CHILDREN over our very own most at risk children. This burns me up. It burns me up that there will be 15 or 20 out of 48 spots taken by FOREIGN students in our elementary. American BLACK children will be pushed aside for the children of foreigners (Muslim) to receive free day care. And don’t get me started on these families breeding while they are here so they will have anchor babies.
That issue reared its head in my part of NJ; some towns added full-day Pre-K (basically “free” daycare”), then walked it back because of the crushing property tax costs of adding those unionized teachers. Some eliminated it altogether, some returned to a 1/2 day Pre-K paired with 1/2 day Kindergarten (using the same teachers), and a few switched to a model where the users pay for it.
Ridiculous in an education system where even KINDERGARTEN isn’t a requirement - just more “free” daycare. Here in NJ (and I suspect in most places), children are expected to attend first grade (if they aren’t home-schooled).