It's a good day when a bad law begins to lose favor before it's referendum with the public. Yet it's not always good when it's loss of popularity is for the wrong reason. Under Proposition 82, California is debating whether to do "preschool for all." As you can imagine, Californians are aware that this would place another block (estimated at $2.4 Billion) atop their state's teetering tax pyramid, if only for the "very rich," those earning more than $400,000 annually. At least 46% would vote against it, compared to 41% who would vote for it.

The problem is that while Californians are swinging back to fiscal conservativism, they are not catching the bulk of the social conservative vision. According to the Boston Globe,

So, 80%, or nearly all of the state, believes that preschool helps students later. But how does it help them? The assumption is that it prepares them for their future school experience, especially "fitting in." A few studies conducted found that students in preschool  had a significantly higher high school graduation rate than those that had not, especially among the girls. Another study found that those attending preschool ended up with a significantly lower crime rate than those that did not. While these are admirable statistics, they're comparing preschool against "not." Not-preschooled is presumably everything else a child could outside of preschool, but most likely is a child watching TV with their daycare nanny while mommy and daddy are off pursuing their careers. It's important to note that homeschoolers would not be included in this study because they wouldn't graduate from a traditional high school. Clearly, a deeper investigation of parental involvement in a childs formative years, especially as it affects their education and criminal record, is needed.

However, is a "universal" preschool mandated to the public schools really such a good idea? K-12 public schools are already troubled with abysmal performance and anti-social students. It's hard to concentrate on your math test when you're going to get your head smashed in sometime later that day. Putting an additional two years on the front end won't solve the problems of public education. It will likely add more to the existing bureaucracy and make the bloated beast even more difficult to work with.

Signs that preschool may not be so beneficial are also surfacing in recent years. Head Start, started in 1965, is beginning to reveal it's shortcomings. According to an article originally appearing in the Atlanta Journal on August 10, 1999,


Preschool's primary value is not for the students, but the parents that it provides daycare for, especially for mothers to "get back to work." That's where preschool falls into the good graces of the liberal ideology and gives cause for privately-funded research. A privately-funded study may indicate all sorts of benefits to preschool, but government study has less cause for bias. Preschool has been shown by this government study to fail its primary charge of assisting children to perform better in school. Californians are right to vote against Prop. 82, but they don't really understand the better reason to do so.

More importantly, why is there a push in recent years from predominantly left-based sources for "universal" daycare preschool? Is it just so mothers can return to work? Or is it for something darker and more sinister? Hillary's villiage looms ever-present on the horizon of the American socio-political landscape. A push for the state to raise children and remove parents from their traditional roles lies within the left's ideals of socialism. The state-run education system is their primary means of doing so. Parents in America are right to oppose expansion of the public school system. It may be their last chance to protect their rights to raise their children.

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Humpty's Link: A homeschooling grandma talks about an Oklahoma preschool report

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