The redlines in Obama’s pre-K proposal
How will we determine which kinds of teachers are deemed qualified? This is presumably a domain in which different approaches might yield different conclusions. One assumes that public employee unions will make an effort to control this certification process. The definition of “well-trained,” if experience is any guide, may well include some level of postgraduate instruction, a boon to incumbent higher education providers. These institutions will serve as yet another pressure group designed to narrow the number of potential instructors.
Moreover, the federal government is explicitly establishing that teachers must be “paid comparably to K-12 staff,” even if, for example, state and local initiatives determine that, for example, it is better to have more less-expensive staffers than fewer more-expensive staffers. The federal government is also insisting on small class sizes — so even if it makes more sense for a pre-K programs to have a high adult to child ratio but teachers who are paid substantially more than K-12 staff, that option is off the table.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
The only red line that matters is that the federal government has no Constitutional authority to enact education legislation of any kind
This is just an effort to get more union teachers paying union dues to the Democrat party.
Charlemagne on February 17, 2013 at 11:55 AM
Hasn’t Head Start been proven an absolute failure ?
What’s different about this program ? Sounds like another
duplication .
Lucano on February 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM
Twofer freebies….from taxpayers in Obie’s name…
Free babysitting/child care delivered by a ceaselessly indoctrinating union teacher.
What’s not to love?
marybel on February 17, 2013 at 12:07 PM
Given that that bridge has been crossed, exploded, and burned to the ground, it really doesn’t matter at all. We can try to push everything back to the states, but making a constitutional objection to it won’t really get any traction.
Count to 10 on February 17, 2013 at 12:07 PM
Over at Rasmussen there’s a new poll with over 80% saying parents are the most important influence in a child’s life. Why can’t they see, then, that turning a child over to the state for most of his/her life is not the best parenting method???
Universal pre-school would be tragic.
Greyledge Gal on February 17, 2013 at 12:13 PM
Kiddies can you say “Boondoggle”?
/
These programs are a huge waste of money.
CW on February 17, 2013 at 12:14 PM
We already have a taxpayer-funded pre-K program into which we’ve poured hundreds of billions of dollars over several decades. It’s called Head Start, and every single analysis (and there have been multiple studies) has shown that it does not provide any lasting benefit.
So Obama’s answer is to double-down on a proven failure.
Gee, where has he tried that before? Or maybe we should ask, where hasn’t he tried that before?
AZCoyote on February 17, 2013 at 12:20 PM
Surely this is a sop to his union supporters, but I suspect what Obama really would like is to have a government crony present at every birth so that mom can just place her infant into the “loving” hands of Big Brother ASAP.
Meredith on February 17, 2013 at 12:36 PM
What good is rigorous curriculum in Pre-school if the K-12 curriculum is dumbed down?
Qzsusy on February 17, 2013 at 12:36 PM
My dad is on a school board in Wisconsin, and there has been a lot of push for 4K over the last several years. All the proponents point to a study which showed that kids who had 4k had an advantage going into Kindergarten.
They ignore, or are not aware of, the multitude of other studies which have shown that 1) the effects wear off by 3rd grade, after which there is no difference between those who had 4k and those who didn’t, 2) the study only applied to inner-city kids (my dad is in the suburbs).
This is nothing more than a pander–unions get more members, people get free child care, and the taxpayer gets hosed. Again.
Mohonri on February 17, 2013 at 12:42 PM
Arguing about whether the federal government, the state government, the local government, or whoever should be in charge of pre-K is the wrong argument to have. The argument to have is whether or not we should have pre-K in the first place.
Up until now, all of the data indicates that pre-K programs have been a complete and utter failure. They provide absolutely no benefit what-so-ever to the children. Studies show that by the time students reach 2nd grade, there is no discernible difference between the performance of those who attended pre-K and those who did not. And for those who cry “social skills!”, I’m sorry, but 2, 3, and 4 year olds have plenty of time to be out in the world learning how to socialize. That is the time period when their main form of socialization should be, and always has been, with the loving, nurturing family that they have at home.
No, the pre-K movement is there to accomplish two goals… One, to provide babysitters, because we’ve made the concept of a stay-at-home mom unthinkable in our society. And, two, to allow the indotrinators in the education field to get their hands on our kids even earlier.
No, it’s time to get rid of pre-K altogether.
Shump on February 17, 2013 at 2:16 PM