Preschool: Some Things Should be Common Sense

The Robbinsdale Radical takes me to task for the post on what a bad idea Governor Rounds' preschool initiative is (I would have though he'd hug my neck for opposing a Republican governor so much these days).

From the piece against preschool that I did in the Rapid City Journal a few weeks ago, I have compiled lots of information from numerous studies that show that not only are any academic boosts from preschool dissipated by the third grade (a royal waste of money, considering they have 9 more years to go), but it is often harmful to take kids away from family so young. I just became aware of this one this afternoon: All-Day Kindergarten Failing as Education Reform.

That children belong with family should be common sense, but then there isn't much common sense floating around these days.

And Curtis' statement that a minimum wage increase is somehow going to accomplish that is pretty weak. Unless you increase it far beyond what the economy could stand (even short term, because it would cause the overall cost of living to skyrocket very soon), it wouldn't suddenly "enable" parents to spend more time with their kids.

Lack of income isn't even a factor in most of the instances where both parents work outside the home (see "
My wife has a master's degree in learning disabilities, yet she chose to remain home with our children. She tutors from home and makes peanuts compared to what she could in the public school system, but being able to nurture and teach our children was more important to her (and me). And though I now make enough that we're not in a panic every time an unexpected expense comes along, it wasn't that many years ago that there was absolutely nothing left over from paycheck to paycheck. Yet even then we considered our children's development and well being more important than a new car, a big-screen TV, or fancy clothes.

It's a matter of priorities, and our children should be right up there at the top. You can't make parents make their children their highest priority, but you don't need to keep adding things to society--at taxpayer expense--that make it easier and easier to look to someone else to do what parents should be doing. Preschool is one of those things.