Argus in a Snit Over Preschool

The Argus Leader is in a snit over the rejection of SB 115, the bill authorizing preschool standards.

They especially didn't like Rep. Mike Buckingham's vote against it, and here's what they had to tell him:

Study after study after study after study has shown the benefits of preschool education. Not baby-sitting, but preschool.

Which ones are those? Is it the one where Cato policy analyst Darcy Olsen reviewed 35 years of studies and found no lasting benefits of preschool? Or David Elkind, author and professor of child study at Tufts University, who said that there is no evidence that preschool education is appropriate for middle class students? Or Ed Zigler, the Head Start architect, who said "Our four-year-olds do have a place in school, but it is not at a school desk." Or how about the Abecedarian Project that found preschool children were more likely to have behavioral problems than others, and that also found any academic advantage was "history" by the time the students were in high school. Or the 2005 Goldwater Institute report that had the same finding, that any academic benefit fades fast? The same report that found, "The preschool enrollment rate of four-year-olds has climbed from 16% to 66% since 1965. Despite the change from home education to formal early education, student achievement has stagnated since 1970." Or the Rand Corporation's cost benefit analysis which found preschool generates losses of 25-30 cents for every dollar spent.

Was it one of these reports the Argus was referencing?

Eighty-two percent of South Dakota mothers work - the highest percentage in the nation - meaning a large number of our kids are in some sort of preschool setting.

Here we have the typical liberal answer to a problem: if you have a problem area, then make it easier to create more of that problem.

That is a very sad figure--sad for South Dakota children. So the answer from the Argus is to make that figure even larger. Are they shooting for 100%? Do they want a "No Child Left with Parents" program?

Instead of coming up with new taxpayer funded programs to make the dissolution of stable family life even easier, we should be working to bring the family back together and provide a healthy, reliable home life for our children.

Children will be better off in many ways if they are home with parents, not with strangers who may or may not share their values, and who have to divide their attention among many other children.

If those settings are schools that offer education - not simply babysitting - there ought to be standards.

If we are to base our faith in preschool education on the current achievements of the public school system, then that faith is seriously misplaced. Despite throwing unprecedented amounts of money at "education" in recent decades, academic achievement is pretty much stagnant...and this even after testing has been dumbed down.

The Argus also says "Nonsense" of the assertion:

Opponents of the standards bill said it would lead not just to state-funded pre-kindergarten schooling but to forced preschool.

It's far from nonsense. Since when does any government funded program remain "voluntary" for long? Senator Bill Napoli said last Saturday that he researched the head start program and found that within 12 years it had gone from voluntary to mandatory. Preschool will undoubtedly do the same, if not faster.

I grew up poor, and I didn't even get to go to Head Start. Due to my "disadvantage," it took the other kids who went to headstart well into high school for most of them to catch up to where I was. My parents weren't genius' either; just simple farm folk who cared about their boy.

We need more folks who care about their children enough to take care of them, and less government funded programs that accomplish little other than pushing the family farther over the precipice.

Yes, it may take sacrifice. We may not have all the grownup toys we want, we may not all the trappings of modern life that we want, and we may not achieve all the goals of our self-actualization plan.

But aren't our children worth some personal sacrifice?