‘Meathead’ Is at It Again

Movie director turned child advocate Rob Reiner–best known for playing the role of “Meathead” on “All in the Family”–recently acquired a million signatures to put his Preschool for All initiative on the California ballot next June, his second attempt to launch a “universal” preschool program. The initiative would impose a 1.7% income tax on couples making over $800,000 a year ($400,000 for individuals) to offer three hours of free preschool for all the state’s 4-year-olds.
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This soak-the-rich scheme would put $2.3 billion into the state’s coffers. But the people most dreading Mr. Reiner’s latest foray are not the superrich, who would no doubt find ways to dodge–by moving out of the state if necessary–what would effectively be a 19% increase in their tax rate. The real victims would be low- to middle-income women who run nearly all private early-care centers that comprise 70% of California’s child-care industry. The onerous credentialing requirements and union mandates that the initiative would trigger would devastate the industry’s entrepreneurs without improving instruction one iota.
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Driving out women and minorities, closing down private providers, and delivering preschools to a union monopoly would of course all be worth it if, in the end, children were better off. But studies have found virtually no gains on cognitive outcomes for preschoolers taught by teachers with bachelor’s degrees.

But the most powerful evidence that Mr. Reiner’s requirements would, if anything, hurt rather than help California’s kids is California’s K-12 public school system itself. After all, it is run by teachers with precisely the kind of fancy education degrees drawing union wages that Mr. Reiner wants in preschools. California’s fourth graders’ reading and math scores are 47th among the 50 states on national tests. Furthermore, a study by the Rand Corp. this year found California’s children trailing on every objective measurement of student achievement–even after controlling for its disproportionate number of low-income, minority kids.

Soooooooooo Meaty.

Rob Reiner steps down from California preschool commission

(Thursday, March 30, 2006) Two weeks ago, a defiant Rob Reiner scoffed at suggestions that he should resign from the lavishly funded state preschool commission he helped establish in 1999. But Wednesday, the Hollywood director rewrote his own script and surrendered the chairmanship of the California First 5 Commission, as the agency faced the prospect of an audit into its spending practices.
Reiner offered his resignation over the weekend in a phone call to his friend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was contending with pressure from fellow Republicans to push Reiner aside.
“We agreed that we cannot let personal political attacks get in the way of doing the very best we can for California’s children,” Reiner said in a letter released Wednesday.
Critics have accused the commission of a conflict of interest for spending $23 million in public money on an ad campaign that coincided with Reiner’s promotion of an expanded preschool initiative that’s on the ballot this year, known as Proposition 82.

Ms. Strothers torso is so large and Mr. Reine ego and head are so inflated you would need require a wider screen than is produced today.

To get the both of them on the screen to represent a grown up and out boomer generation would

Fred is his own celebrity

William Amos on October 9, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Pffft. Color me underwhelmed. Fred’s blowing it big time. His first big debate, and “…it’s rather ironic: The only professional actor in the race couldn’t even pretend he wanted to be there.”

The sooner you Fred-heads can get over his supposed celebrity status, the sooner we can get back to selecting a real candidate.

Says it all.

Shy Guy on October 10, 2007 at 3:45 AM

That was so funny. Thanks for helping Archie show up!

Reiner was a hippie on the Beverly Hillbillies. They convinced Jethro to become a hippie, too.
You can’t crack a joke on this; it’s too easy.

liquidflorian on October 9, 2007 at 11:22 PM

James Woods. Tom Selleck. Shannen Doherty, Bo Derek, Bruce Willis (maybe) Heck, maybe even Angelina Jolie’s daddy, John Voight.

There are others whose names I can’t remember right now; and there are probably quite a few ‘A & B listers’ that are just too afraid to ‘come out of the closet’ at all as conservatives, but in the privacy of the voting booth will pull the ‘right’ levers.

Robert Duvall, who has endorsed Rudy.

This commercial is probably the lamest thing he has ever done. Maybe his heart just wasn’t in it….. I’m thinking he is probably more of a Kucinich or Obama fan, but Hillary has his FBI file, and he has to do stuff for her or face the consequences.