Given that many states have already instituted pre-K programs, or are committed to doing so, this paper proposes model early education legislation aimed at maximizing their chances for longterm success. The Early Education Tax Credit aims to sustain any potential preschool benefits and establish a solid academic foundation for later success. The program would improve the quality and efficiency of preschool options by harnessing market forces and would pay for itself by using savings generated from the migration of students from public to private schools in grades K–4.

The Early Education Tax Credit approach is unique in meeting the demands of activists for expanded access to high-quality preschool, meeting the needs of children and the preferences of their parents, and meeting the goal of increased educational freedom — all while keeping the budgetary impact low or positive.

• Policy Analysis no. 641 with appendices on the model legislation (PDF, 874KB )
• Policy Analysis no. 641 without appendices (PDF, 744KB )
Appendices on the model legislation:
• Appendix A: The Early Education Tax Credit Act (PDF, 78KB )
• Appendix B: The EETC in Action (PDF, 32KB )

The president is proposing education policies that are neither the most effective nor the most efficient means of achieving his laudable goals. He plans to expand Head Start and double funding for Early Head Start — federal programs aimed at preschool children. Though the president appears convinced that such programs can save many times what is spent on them, the evidence for that view is weak.

Even economist James Heckman, whose work has influenced President Obama's thinking on the subject, is far more guarded. In 2007, Heckman identified three small preschool programs from the 1960s and 1970s that studies suggest have more than paid for themselves in lower subsequent welfare and criminal justice costs incurred by their participants. But Heckman cautioned that "a much more careful analysis of the effects of scaling up the model programs... has to be undertaken before these estimates can be considered definitive."

His caveat is well justified. The "Perry preschool" study which yielded the highest estimated return enrolled just 123 children. There is good reason to doubt that it can be replicated by the federal government nationwide. A large body of research on other Head Start programs finds that while they sometimes offer short term academic benefits, these generally disappear by the elementary school grades. The largest review of this literature, published by the Department of Health and Human Services, looked at more than 200 studies and concluded that there was no lasting academic advantage to participation in Head Start.

If spending on Head Start and other federal education programs had produced widespread, significant benefits since their inception in the mid 1960s, overall student achievement and graduation rates should have risen over time. The achievement gap between children of high-school dropouts and those of college graduates should have narrowed as well, because most federal education programs are targeted at disadvantaged students. None of these things occurred.

According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, the best available measure of academic trends, U.S. seventeen-year-olds score no better in math or reading today than they did nearly forty years ago. In science they perform slightly worse. The gap between children of dropouts and children of college graduates is unchanged in reading and science, and has decreased by only one percent in math. According to Heckman himself, the high school graduation rate peaked a few years after Head Start was passed and has declined by four or five points since then.

For these disappointing results, the federal government has spent roughly $1.85 trillion dollars on education programs since 1965. So while some small local preschool programs may have generated lasting, significant effects, the federal government cannot be counted on to reproduce those effects on a national scale.

If the president really wants effective, efficient programs, he should look at Florida's scholarship donation tax credit. Under this program, businesses can contribute to non-profit scholarship organizations that subsidize private k-12 tuition for needy families. For each dollar they donate, the businesses owe one fewer dollar in taxes. Last December, Florida's own government accountability office found that this education tax credit saves $1.49 for every dollar it reduces tax revenue. That is three times the largest return on investment for the preschool programs cited by Heckman —and it comes from a policy that is already serving 23,000 students statewide.

Giving at-risk children access to private schooling has been repeatedly shown to improve their educational attainment. Economist Derek Neal has found that Catholic schools raise the graduation rate of urban African Americans by 26 percentage points, and more than double their chances of graduating from college – even after controlling for differences in student background between the sectors. Half a dozen other scientific studies echo Neal's findings. Researchers from the U.S. and abroad also point to higher test scores for students when they attend private rather than public schools, after controlling for student and family background, as I report in a forthcoming global literature review in the Journal of School Choice.

While it would not be constitutional for the president to pursue a national school choice program, he could greatly accelerate the growth and adoption of such programs around the country by throwing his support behind them. He would not be the first Democrat to do so. Florida's scholarship tax credit was expanded last year with the support of one third of the state's Democratic caucus.

Obama opened his speech with a surefire political winner, promoting pre-kindergarten education. Among the specific proposals he listed was instituting Early Learning Challenge Grants, which would provide educational and other supports starting in infancy. The inclusion of these specifics suggests that, at least on pre-k, his talk is likely to be followed by concrete policy action.

Which is not to suggest that he didn't practice some dubious political salesmanship. Most notably, Obama asserted that taxpayers would save ten dollars in welfare, prison, and other costs for every buck invested in early education. What he didn't say is that this rosy scenario is based on a few tiny, expensive, hyper-intensive programs that would likely prove impossible to replicate on a large scale.

Next, Obama discussed elementary and secondary academic standards, a much more perilous realm than funding pre-kindergarten education. He again took the most politically promising stance, and this time that required avoiding any concrete proposals – not exactly a promising sign that real change is to come. Obama offered always-lauded tough talk about challenging "our states to set world-class standards," but dodged completely the politically hazardous question of how, exactly, that would be done. He left that until later, saying that the public will have to wait for specifics until he gets to work revamping the No Child Left Behind Act.

It was on his next topic, however, that Obama has been most politically adroit. Since he addressed the National Education Association two years ago and dared mention teacher merit pay – NEA members booed him for it the following year – he has been getting the best of both worlds. The media and even some conservative commentators have declared him brave and un-beholden to his party's most powerful constituency, while they've largely ignored the wink and nod that has typically accompanied his purported heresy.

"I want to work with teachers," Obama told the NEA in 2007. "I'm not going to do it to you, I'm going to do it with you."

Political perfection: Obama gets feted as courageous and bold while assuring the old guard that nothing gets done without it. His most recent address did little to change that. He talked about rejecting "a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences," but said nothing about how failure is actually defined or what consequences it should carry. Nothing concrete was said allowing everyone to feel safe and happy.

Charter schooling is another area in which Obama threw overboard any substantive proposals, enabling him to skillfully navigate tricky political waters and achieve maximum political gain. Calling for both the removal of caps on charter schools and greater charter "accountability," the President ensured that everyone would be happy. Charter supporters could celebrate cap-lifting and call Obama a friend, while opponents could expect to gain greater control over the schools they find so vexing.

Finally, there's college for all. Like pre-kindergarten education, this is a political slam-dunk. In February, the polling outfit Public Agenda found that 89 percent of Americans agree that "we should not allow the price...to keep students who are qualified and motivated" from attending college. Not surprisingly, in this safe zone the president once again furnished specific proposals, most notably to make Pell Grants an entitlement and index their growth above inflation.

But this isn't real change – Washington has been increasing student aid for decades. Indeed, college has become less affordable in part because enabling students to pay more has allowed colleges to charge more. One of the best things to do to make college more affordable, then, would be to cut student aid. But that kind of real change is politically hard.

So on education, is President Obama an intrepid reformer, as his words might suggest and many believe, or just a savvy politician? It's too early to know for sure, but so far nothing that he's said – or left unsaid – suggests he's anything but the latter.

But isn't education one of the best public investments we could possibly make? After all, doesn't spending on education give our students the skills and knowledge they need not just to spur economic recovery, but long-term growth?

No. More and better education may indeed be a good thing, but government spending doesn't give us that. What it gives us is more waste.

Consider elementary and secondary education, which receives the biggest share of the bill's education stimulation.

The average, inflation-adjusted, per-pupil expenditure in the United States was $5,393 in 1970 according to the U.S. Department of Education's Digest of Education Statistics. By 2004 it had more than doubled to $11,470.

And what did we get in return? Almost nothing.

Between 1973 and 2004 mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose just one percent for 17-year-olds. And math achievement was the good news. Between 1971 and 2004, their reading scores were completely flat.

So much for K-12. How about higher education?

Here too, there's been no dearth of money. According to the State Higher Education Executive Officers, the overall trend for state and local expenditures per full-time-equivalent college student held steady at around $7,000 over the past 25 years. Enrollment, however, increased by more than a third, inflating the overall taxpayer bill. And student aid - most of which came through government - nearly tripled, hitting $10,392.

What are the returns on this outlay? Nada or negative. There isn't much systematic data on higher education outcomes, but what we do have looks discouraging.

Forty percent of people whose highest educational attainment was a bachelor's degree were proficient readers in 1992 according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. By 2003, only 31 percent were. For Americans with graduate degrees, 51 percent were proficient readers in 1992. Eleven years later, only 41 percent were. This lack of improvement is not limited to reading. Between 1992 and 2003 bachelor's degree holders saw no change in quantitative proficiency, and graduate scores dropped.

Of course, we did get a few things for our money, like campus-based rock climbing walls, nicer dormitories, and ballooning administrative ranks. But these don't increase human capital or confer economic benefits. In fact, economist Richard Vedder has shown that greater state expenditures on higher education are correlated with lower economic growth.

So spending more on elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schooling is a waste. How about pre-kindergarten education? Isn't getting to kids as early as possible is the key to success?

Not so. Head Start, the federal government's flagship early-education program, has received billions of inflation-adjusted dollars every year since 1966, including almost $7 billion last year alone. But there is little evidence that Head Start produces lasting benefits either to society or the children it's meant to help. Indeed, the government's own comprehensive review of the research concluded that while Head Start kids get some initial boosts, "in the long run, cognitive and socio-emotional test scores of Head Start students do not remain superior to those of disadvantaged children who did not attend Head Start."

There is more evidence supporting programs featuring very intrusive and intensive family interventions starting when children are under a year old, at least according to some small-scale research. But no large-scale program has ever accomplished this, and the programs that states have implemented have proven ineffective.

We've spent billions of dollars of public cash on elementary and secondary, higher, and pre-K education, and have received hardly any positive educational returns. Why?

Because politicians spend money so they appear to "care" and to be "doing something" about problems, but once that message is out, whether the money is wasted is of little political importance. Just look at the first round of President Bush's financial bailout - no one is sure where the money went. And education is one of the worst areas for this: Every politician wants to "help" the innocent children, so they've constantly poured good money after bad.

In the end, though, that's neither helped the children nor the economy. It's only helped the politicians.

Indeed, despite the big "C" for "Children" in the program's name, 12 states currently use S-CHIP funds to provide taxpayer-funded insurance for adults. According to data released by the Department of Health and Human Services in July, Wisconsin covers almost twice as many adults as children — and spends 75 percent of its S-CHIP funds on them. Minnesota spends 63 percent of its S-CHIP funds on adults. In New Jersey, it's 43 percent.

Nor is the program targeted to the poor or those most in need. Under the proposed expansion, taxpayers would be subsidizing insurance for middle-class families earning as much as $82,000 for a family of four. This is an extension of what amounts to welfare benefits well into the middle class. And, ironically, this expansion of benefits is theoretically funded primarily through a tobacco tax — which is highly regressive, falling hardest on low-income Americans.

Even worse, according to a study in the journal Inquiry, six out of every 10 children covered under S-CHIP already had private coverage. S-CHIP merely encourages their family or their family's employer to drop private coverage and switch to the government program — at taxpayer expense. Increasing eligibility will only worsen this crowding-out effect. At the upper levels of the proposed eligibility expansion, fully 89 percent of children already have private insurance.

That is what the battle over S-CHIP is really about. Many of the program's supporters see it as the first step in creating a full-blown government-run national health care system. A memo from Hillary Clinton's secret 1993 health care task force called for a "kids first" approach to bringing all of American health care under government control. Since then, national health care advocates have seen children's health insurance as the camel's nose under the tent for a wider program.

And those plans are well under way. Already nearly 45 percent of all American children are enrolled in government health programs such as Medicaid and S-CHIP. Under the proposed expansion, 70 percent of children would be pushed into government-run health care. At the same time, Clinton and others are calling for opening Medicare to people younger than age 65. Thus, private health insurance will be squeezed from both the top and the bottom.

Of course we all like to see more children, indeed more Americans of all ages, have easier access to affordable health insurance. But getting there means eliminating expensive government mandates and regulations that drive up the cost of insurance, not increasing government subsidies and control. For example, Congress can repeal barriers that prevent families living in states like New York and New Jersey where regulations have made insurance particularly expensive from buying policies in lower-cost states. And Congress could provide a tax break for families who buy insurance separate from their employers. Health savings accounts can and should be expanded.

Congressional Democrats have scheduled a vote to override the president's veto for Oct. 18. Between now and then, we can expect a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the plight of the children. Congress should ignore the rhetoric and uphold this veto.

This time, let's not do it for the children.

The conflict began a few months ago when a group of parents, upset that the book was in the district's middle school libraries, called for its removal. The uproar escalated in October when a committee of parents, students and district employees ruled against the parents' request.

Despite the setback, opponents of the book persevered. They asked District Superintendent Charles Ecker to personally remove it from school libraries. After reviewing the volume in question, Ecker did as they asked. That, in turn, set off protests by students and provoked accusations of censorship from such heavy hitters as the American Civil Liberties Union. The conflict is far from over: Ecker has agreed to reconsider removal of the book.

Regardless of what Ecker ends up doing, the ACLU is right: Government cannot pick and choose what is or is not acceptable speech. But the parents who called for the book's removal are also right: Just as government may not censor speech, it may not force people to support speech they find offensive.

Think about how public schooling works: All taxpayers must fund a single system, but only those with the political power to elect school board majorities or exercise control in some other way are able to ensure that they get what they want out of it. Whether selecting library books or choosing math curricula, the most powerful plurality rules, no matter how repugnant the rest of the community might find its decisions.

This is patently unjust, of course, but America's public school system could not function otherwise. As long as government provides a single system of schools, only one set of values can hold sway; individual rights must be sacrificed.

And that's not all. In addition to being unfair, the system forces everyone in it to engage in constant political combat, lest their own rights be cast aside. Just consider how many times communities have been torn asunder by book-banning controversies like Carroll County's. Beverly Becker, executive director of American Library Association, has received reports of 547 book challenges in 2004, which she estimates to be only a quarter of all the challenges that occurred last year.

And book banning is just one of countless sources of conflict. In Montgomery County, parents have been at each other's throats for years over sex education, a story that has repeated itself across the nation for decades. And then there's intelligent design, which has sparked acrimonious hearings and court cases from Pennsylvania to Kansas and is really just the latest front in a war over the teaching of human origins that has raged since the 1920s.

Thankfully, public education can be reformed. We can ensure that every child receives an education, but without state governments or school districts running the schools - the ultimate cause of our educational warfare. School choice is the key.

Arguably the best-known mechanisms for providing choice are school vouchers, which help to douse the flames of strife by empowering parents to seek out schools that share their values. Even better are tax credit programs that allow parents to subtract education expenses from the taxes they owe or allow taxpayers to redirect part of their taxes to organizations that provide scholarships to the poor. In these programs, absolutely no coercion is involved because only those taxpayers who freely choose to support parents' schooling decisions do so.

Unfortunately for the people of Carroll County, it is probably too late for choice to salvage their holiday goodwill this year. But maybe in the future, through choice, Carroll County and countless other communities can finally have some peace.]]> Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5366 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3983 London Telegraph. Girls as young as eight are being diagnosed with eating disorders.

The situation is no different in the United States. If we crunch the available data on eating disorders (with data from the National Institute of Mental Health) versus the number of children who have Type II Diabetes (the most common ailment associated with childhood obesity -- data comes from the Center for Disease Control) we find that the average child today is somewhere between 222 and 1,097 times more likely to have an eating disorder than Type II Diabetes.

Why in the world would a state like Arkansas, then, boast about how it forces each of its public school students to stand on a scale, then sends notes home parents about the child's Body Mass Index? Why are lawmakers in New York, Georgia, and Texas considering similar proposals? Because, obesity is the outrage du jour of late. Body image and eating disorders are passé. If policies enacted to fight obesity make adolescents and teens more likely to develop eating disorders, well, that's a consequence of how some health activists and media outlets have arranged priorities.

The unfortunate policies don't stop there. Why did Texas attempt to ban elementary students from bringing cupcakes to school, even to celebrate a birthday? Why have some lawmakers proposed allowing teachers to rifle through lunchboxes and seize contraband such as Snickers bars and Pixie Sticks?

The answer of course is hysteria. We're in the midst of a moral panic over obesity. We're told that we've been getting fatter for thirty years, and that this thickening of our waistlines portends a coming healthcare catastrophe. Yet over that same period of time, our life expectancy has risen to all-time highs, while cancer, heart disease, and stroke have dropped off dramatically.

Of course, when we're talking about children, the rhetoric only heightens. "We need to do something -- for the children," is a refrain so common in American politics, it's become cliché. Invariably, "for the children" means taking control away from parents, and handing it over to panicked bureaucrats and health activists. "For the children" means act now. It means do what at first blush seems obvious; to do what feels right, consequences and real world implications be damned.

Nutrition activists and self-appointed public health advocates are beating down the doors of Congress, and they want action -- any action. At an obesity conference in June 2004, the president of largest public health organization in the country -- the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- acknowledged that the real-world consequences of obesity weren't yet known, but that, nevertheless, "we must act ahead of the science."

That's a rather remarkable charge. Act blindly, and rashly. Whether or not a given policy is practical, survives an analysis of its costs and benefits, or effects unintended consequences, then, isn't important. Our children are getting big, anti-obesity crusaders say. And if their parents aren't satisfactorily monitoring their own children's diet and exercise, it's time for the state to step in.

In an important new paper, Dr. Jon Robison calls for a "timeout" from all of the hysteria. He calmly and lucidly scours and summarizes the body of academic work on childhood obesity, and comes to a few conclusions most Americans might find surprising, or at least contrary to conventional wisdom.

First, Dr. Robison explains, there's really no good way to define "childhood obesity." The BMI is problematic enough for adults, but it's even more impractical when used on children, who grow and physically mature at different rates at different ages. It's not really even possible to define what is a "normal" weight for a given child at a given age and a given height. Children's growth habits just aren't predictable enough to draw such broad conclusions.

Second, the data is far from conclusive that overweight or obese children grow up to be overweight, obese, or unhealthy adults. This is the most common reason advocates and policymakers often call for government action.

Third, it's likely that the real scope of the child obesity "epidemic" has been exaggerated by the government, public health activists and the media. Dr. Robison notes that between eighty-five and ninety percent of American children are of acceptable weight. The trend seems to hold in Britain too, where activists have been particularly alarmist and reactionary about the problem.

Fourth, Dr. Robison also debunks the common assumption that our kids are not only eating more today, they're eating more of the wrong kinds of food. He cites published, peer-reviewed research showing that energy intake among children is actually on a downward slope, as is the number of calories kids consume from fat.

Next, Dr. Robison questions claims (often put forth by advocates for the food industry), that today's kids are plumper because they don't move as much as they did in the past. While the evidence on just how active today's kids are is conflicting, Dr. Robison points to several studies that find no direct correlation between, for example, TV viewing habits and childhood obesity.

Dr. Robison then examines and dismantles the panoply of proposals aimed at reducing the collective weight of America's kids. He concludes that most place too much emphasis on restricting options, focus too fixedly on thinness, and create unhealthy relationships between children and food (designating "good" and "bad" foods).

Ultimately, Dr. Robison suggests we inculcate in kids a healthier approach to food, one that emphasizes the inherit risks and fallibility of dieting, accepts the fact that we human beings come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, encourages pleasurable, sustainable physical activity, and fosters normal eating patterns based on our internal cues of hunger appetite and satiety.

The media are always eager to bite on a crisis. See the rash of shark attack reports several summers ago (actual attacks were down), or the kidnapping reports from three summers back (those were down, too). The CDC's now-discredited claim that 400,000 Americans die each year due to obesity was swallowed whole by journalists and health professionals across the country, with very little skepticism. They also bit on a story a decade ago that put the number at 300,000. These statistics weren't without their critics. It's just that those critics didn't make the news. Of course, the critics were ultimately vindicated -- the agency recently revised its figure down to 115,000, or 25,000 when you discount for lives saved from the health benefits of modest overweight. That means the original figure was off by a factor of fifteen.

Perhaps we've finally reached the point where the obesity panic is the "norm" in newsrooms, and its critics are the kind of "man bites dog" story journalists clamor for. If that's the case, Dr. Robison's thorough refutation of the conventional wisdom on childhood obesity ought to provide ample grist for the next round of stories on America's battle with the bulge.

On April 30 I stopped by the Adams Elementary School on 19th Street in northwest Washington, D.C., to hear from Chavous about the proposal. Instead, because Chavous canceled the meeting, I got an earful from about 15 opponents of the measure. Mistaking me for a Chavous supporter, apparently because they hadn't seen me at previous town hall meetings, the opponents of the mandatory preschool amendment fired questions at me: Do you support forcing infants into school? Don't you know Chavous is just doing this because he wants to be mayor? Do you think this city has the capacity to carry out this program? Why are you here?

I explained to them that I was there to hear from both sides. The ladies, who it turns out are studying the child development field, agreed with me that the preschool program would extend the schooling process without improving educational performance.

The D.C. public school system is already a well-financed failure and the proposal by Chavous for a pilot program costing $50 million the first year and $30 million annually won't change that. To put that $30 million program into perspective, consider this: In 2000, including federal funds, D.C. spent more than $850 million on education. Last year the school system ran up a deficit of $62 million, twice the amount that would be spent on the preschool program. In March, the D.C. Board of Education announced that it was freezing spending because the system was overspending.

What is it that the first $850 million couldn't do that the next $30 million will? If targeting money like that will have an impact, then why not target that $30 million at students already in the system? Are Chavous and others conceding that they can't do much about K-12, so they'll focus their energies elsewhere? If we've got a hole in the roof, then why are we trying to build extra rooms?

Chavous says he wants the program to get kids ready for kindergarten. The reality is that D.C. school kids show up for kindergarten ready and able to learn, but are failed by the public school system. On the Stanford 9, an achievement test given every spring, the percentage of D.C. kids reading at a Below Basic level greatly increases the longer children are in D.C.'s public schools. On the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, given until the mid-1990s in the District, D.C. public school students in grades 3 and 6 often performed above the national norm in math and language, above the national norm in science, and slightly below the national norm in reading. But by 10th and 11th grade, they were well below the norm.

Not only is the system failing educationally, the system itself is literally in a shambles. According to a July 2, 2000, Washington Post article, "The District of Columbia's $1 billion campaign to rebuild its crumbling schools is in turmoil. Window replacements, bathroom renovations, and whole-school modernizations are behind schedule." In an understatement, then schools' chief facilities officer Kifah W. Jayyousi wrote in a June 2000 memo, "The program management is dysfunctional. Projects are simply dropping off or being delayed indefinitely [w]hile the whole program continues to slip on a weekly basis." According to schools superintendent Paul Vance, Jayyousi was relieved of his duties because he had "put the health and safety of children 'at risk' and failed to properly manage his department." A report released last month by the General Accounting Office confirmed that the modernization is still well behind schedule and already $170 million over budget.

Now Chavous wants to force 10,000 toddlers to attend schools that even the school board president says are "decrepit," further burdening an already overwhelmed system. Chavous says, "It would force the school system to take charge and responsibility for every 3- and 4-year-old in the city to make sure they are prepared for kindergarten."

The system hasn't been able to take charge and responsibility for students already in the system, so it is doubtful that an extra two years will help those 10,000 toddlers. The announcement by Chavous last June came a bit after news reports that D.C. middle school students had been strip-searched at jails. Do we really want 3-year-olds in a system like that?

That question brings us back to the original question: Is compulsory education necessary for D.C. preschool children? Forcing children into a failing system even earlier reminds me of a story the late Albert Shanker, the long-time union leader, used to tell. Shanker would say that if a manufacturing plant realized that 25 percent of its products were falling off at the end of a conveyer belt, management at the plant wouldn't try to speed up the line. Instead, it would try to fix the problem.

In education, Shanker said, people look for ways to extend a process that continues to produce defective results. That's what the proposed amendment to the compulsory education law would do: Extend the schooling process without improving educational performance.

Kindergarten teachers consistently tell us that the most important factors in school readiness are health, verbal ability, curiosity and self-esteem. Children acquire these traits best by experiencing the first year's of their life in a loving home environment where they receive individual attention and nurturing from a parent rather than in a preschool classroom with other children and strangers. There is simply no evidence that normal children benefit from preschool any more than from ordinary parenting.

There is a great deal that states could do to improve the quality of the education that school age children receive. Providing more options to parents though school choice would be one example. Allowing parents to choose equally among available K-12 public and private schools would go along way to improving educational quality. The way to fix education is to address the issue where the problem is--in elementary and secondary schools. Funding preschool programs will not cure the erosion of educational performance that students experience later in America's public schools.

Not only is spending taxpayer dollars on preschool programs unnecessary, its bad public policy. Government programs should not take money from some families and give it to others. When it does, it damages as many families as it helps. The tax code should not be used to subsidize preschool for some children while taxing other struggling families who choose not to place their children in preschool.

Increased funding for preschool programs may give politicians good opportunities to be photographed with children. Perhaps this is one reason why preschool programs are so widely embraced. But the facts show that preschool does not have lasting positive effects on a child's educational experience and state legislators should resist calls to fund preschool for toddlers and young children.

At the American Federation of Teachers' biennial conference this summer, AFT President Sandra Feldman called for a "national commitment" to schooling all 3- and 4-year-olds. At least Feldman was magnanimous enough to suggest that preschool remain voluntary. District of Columbia Councilman Kevin Chavous, on the other hand, sees no problem with forcibly taking young children from their parents. His ominously titled "Compulsory School Attendance Amendment Act" would make school, well, compulsory, for every preschool-aged child in the nation's capital.

D.C. tots aren't the only ones trading their sippy-cups for school desks. Four-year-olds in New York and California have already taken seats in public schools. And visionary bureaucrats in Texas and New Jersey have opened public schools to 3-year-olds.

At first glance, the education establishment's enthusiasm for pre-school seems paradoxical. At an annual cost of $8,000 per child, according to the National Education Association, preschool puts a massive strain on state budgets. Financing two additional grades undermines opportunities to increase salaries and hire new teachers -- a grim prospect for a workforce that reports being underpaid and overworked.

But as public schools come under increasing scrutiny for poor student achievement, the leadership has another concern: waning public support. The percentage of Americans who say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in public schools has fallen from 58 percent in 1973 to 49 percent in 1988 to 36 percent in 1999, according to the Gallup Organization. At the same time, support for policies like vouchers and tuition tax credits has blossomed.

Rather than implement real reforms, the establishment denies its shortcomings and points fingers. Feldman says the charge that schools are failing to educate poor children "is a total myth." As to why the achievement gap persists, she says, "One of the main answers can be found in the 68 percent of a child's waking hours outside of school versus the 32 percent spent in school." To drive the point home, Feldman also proposes extended-day and extended-year schooling along with new summer programs. Why not just cut out the family altogether and send newborns to boarding school?

Private schools aren't making excuses; they're getting the job done. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, mean reading scores for 4th grade black and Hispanic students in private schools are 20 points higher than their respective national means, and the achievement gap between groups is less pronounced. If black students across the nation had the same scores as black students in private schools, the national black/white achievement gap would shrink from 33 points to 13 points; for Hispanics, the disparity would move from 29 points to 9. Even controlling for income levels, the private school advantage holds.

An estimated 60 percent of children already attend preschool without being dragged there by the state. And there's no evidence that children who don't attend are shortchanged. Education Department data show the majority of youngsters at the onset of kindergarten have the social and academic skills that are the foundation for school achievement: 94 percent recognize numbers and shapes and can count to ten; 92 percent are eager to learn; and all but 3 percent are in good health.

Despite that success, the establishment insists on copying Europe's state-run model. In France and Spain, more than 90 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds attend state preschools, yet on international reading tests, U.S. 4th graders significantly outscore their counterparts in these and most other European countries. But although U.S. students sprint ahead during the elementary years, they slow down with each passing year. By 12th grade, they are at best "D" students on the international scale. Putting kids two years earlier into the distressed public system is not going to solve that problem.

Self-professed children's advocates have been slow to discover what parents seem to know instinctively: Every child is unique and no one setting suits all children. Not surprisingly, the agenda for universal preschool has little parental support. According to the non-partisan organization Public Agenda, while 68 percent of self-identified "children's advocates" say government policy should move toward a universal, national child care system, only 27 percent of parents share that vision.

The good news is that the establishment is swimming against a powerful tide: a grass-roots movement sweeping across the states, offering open-enrollment, charter schools, vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts, and multi-million-dollar private scholarship funds. Parents are loosening the government's grip on education, even as the establishment seeks to extend that hold to preschoolers. Parents may not be professional advocates, but maybe -- just maybe -- they know what's best for their kids.]]> Tue, 14 Aug 2001 00:00:00 EDT http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3928 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5543 If Al Gore jumped off a bridge, would George W. Bush do it too? You bet, if Bush's comments on Gore's plans for universal government-funded preschool are anything to judge by.

Immediately following Gore's Monday appearance on Oprah Winfrey's TV show, in which Gore said his number one priority is "universal preschool for every child," Bush issued a press release criticizing the vice president's plan. Well, not the plan itself exactly, but the way Gore talks about the plan.

According to Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett, Gore's plan for universal preschool "doesn't even cover three-year-olds." True enough. Gore's $50 billion proposal is $150 billion short of the estimated $200 billion it would cost to send all three- and four-year-olds to preschool. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that Gore's numbers don't add up. And there's nothing nobler than informing the public when a politician is up to no good. But as usual, the Bush campaign totally missed the point.

Gore's big lie isn't about the funding for his preschool plan — it's his claim that we need this program in the first place. In ceding that ground, the Bush campaign has given up the fight exactly where it should be fought.

The truth is that neither Bush nor Gore tells the truth when it comes to preschool, but the truth-train goes off the rails long before they even get to the issue of funding. Gore's universal preschool and Bush's preschool-lite play into the hands of self-appointed children's advocates who claim that attending preschool is the key to later school achievement. That claim is, quite simply, false.

There is no evidence whatsoever that preschool serves children any better than old-fashioned, at-home parenting. Preschool programs established to help children — from Head Start, which targets poor children, to Georgia's new universal preschool program — have consistently failed to raise children's test scores or result in any measurable, lasting benefits to kids.

Nor is it the case, as Gore implies, that most parents would like to send their children to preschools but just can't afford it. The gap between the preschool attendance rates of children from high- and low-income families has narrowed from 28 percentage points to just 13 points. And more than half of children do attend preschool. The fact that not all children attend preschool simply reflects the fact that not all parents want their children to go.

To many parents, preschool is a second-best option. A recent study by the non-partisan research organization Public Agenda found that nearly 70 percent of parents of young children said they "prefer to stay home with children when they are young." This confirms what polls have been showing for years: Most parents still believe that having a parent at home is the best arrangement for young children.

Regardless of whether they've been taught at home or in preschools, America's four-year-olds are first-rate students. A recent study of children entering kindergarten by the Department of Education found them to be in great shape in terms of physical health, enthusiasm, and curiosity, the factors kindergarten teachers say are the most important for school readiness. Nearly all are proficient at recognizing numbers and shapes, and counting to ten; two in three know their ABCs.

It's also in the early years when American students are most competitive internationally. In England, France, and Denmark, nearly all four-year-olds attend public preschools. But international tests show that by age nine, when the benefits of preschool should still be apparent, American children outscore nearly all of their universally preschooled peers on tests of reading, math, and science. It's only in the later years, when most American children have been long stuck in public schools of questionable quality, that students abroad pull ahead. Apparently Bush and Gore were in such a hurry to squabble over who spends the most on preschool that neither took the time to figure out whether parents and children need or even want it.

But even if preschool were right for every child, this still wouldn't mean the federal government should provide it, any more than it should provide families with diapers or bottles or booties. Bush talks of a federal government that does few things but does them well, yet forgets that caring for young children is a family, not a federal, responsibility. There is no mention of preschool (or education, for that matter) in the Constitution, and for good reason. The way parents raise their children is a personal matter steeped in cultural and moral traditions that deserves protection, not direction, from the state's heavy hand.

And on a practical level, it would be foolish to entrench government still further in the education business when public schools show it is failing in this business to begin with.

Bush has spent a great deal of time on his campaign talking about leadership — that a good leader "must set the right tone" and be "guided by his convictions." Now is a perfect opportunity for Bush to walk the walk. But if his convictions alone fail him, he can always rely on the polls. According to Public Agenda, while 7 in 10 self-proclaimed children's advocates surveyed say that the best direction for government policy is to move toward a universal, national child-care system, only 25 percent of parents of young children share that vision. Strange as it may seem to Bush and Gore, letting parents parent is exactly what parents want.

When Bush appears on the Oprah Winfrey show next Tuesday, he should speak plainly: applaud American parents on a job well done and pledge to leave parenting to those who do it best.

President Lyndon Johnson told audiences, "Children are inheritors of poverty's curse and not its creators…. We set out to make certain that poverty's children would not be forevermore poverty's captives." With seven major objectives--improve the child's physical health, help the child's emotional and social development, improve the child's mental processes, establish expectations of success, increase the child's ability to relate positively to family, develop in the child and his family a responsible attitude toward society, and increase the sense of dignity and self-worth of the child and his family--Head Start raised a high bar that, in retrospect, doomed it to failure before it even began.

Clearly Head Start has not stopped poverty in its tracks. Not surprisingly, the program's goals have become less ambitious over time. Head Start now has the overall goal of "increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families," according to the Head Start bureau. Yet studies show that Head Start has not been able to meet even this boiled-down expectation.

In 1985 the Department of Health and Human Services undertook the first meta-analysis of Head Start research and shook the establishment with its dire findings: "In the long run, cognitive and socioemotional test scores of former Head Start students do not remain superior to those of disadvantaged children who did not attend Head Start." In other words, Head Start was a false start--the net gain to children was zero.

But the establishment has clung to the study's remnants: although gains were not maintained over time, some children had experienced short-term boosts. This, they argued, was Head Start's job. If schools couldn't maintain gains, that reflected a problem with the schools, not the program. That certainly sounds reasonable. But, it's also reasonable for people to question Head Start's utility. If students test the same with or without Head Start after a year or two, what's the point of sending them through the program in the first place?

The most recent and thorough analysis of Head Start was conducted by the non-partisan General Accounting Office in 1997. After reviewing more than 600 citations, manuscripts, and studies, GAO concluded, "The body of research on current Head Start is insufficient to draw conclusions about the impact of the national program."

In a sense, the GAO is right: sloppy study designs and amateur methodological errors so riddle the literature that any claims about the success or failure of the program are not convincing. Given that, one might suggest that more research is needed before giving up on the program. On the other hand, one might also look for guidance from other programs that bear a striking resemblance to Head Start. On this, findings are conclusive: early intervention programs can boost children's test scores, but those gains wash out within a few years of exiting the programs.

Despite evidence that preschool programs do little for children, both presidential contenders are reluctant to let go of Head Start. Instead, George W. Bush supports changing Head Start into an early reading and numeracy program, and Al Gore suggests pouring an additional $1 billion into the program. Both ideas are senseless: thirty-five years, $44 billion, and 17 million children have passed through the Head Start gates since 1965. By any reasonable standard, that's more than enough time and resources to create a successful program, if that were possible.

To make matters worse, it seems that politicians have learned little from experience with Head Start and a host of other early interventions. The hottest issue bubbling up is "universal preschool." As Vice President Al Gore put it in his nomination acceptance speech, "This nation was a pioneer of universal public education. Now, let's set a specific new goal for the first decade of the 21st century: high-quality, universal pre-school, available to every child in every family, all across this nation." In other words, Gore wants government schools entrusted with educating every 3- and 4-year-old in the country.

Gore clings to the notion that preschool improves children's early school performance which, in turn, improves later school performance. "Quality preschool can lead to higher IQs, higher reading and achievement levels, higher graduation rates and greater success in the workplace," says Gore, echoing President Johnson's early optimism. Of course the difference today is: we know better.

Consider the views of child-development scholar Edward Zigler, a founder of Head Start. As far back as 1987, when educators were debating the merits of universal preschool, he warned, "This is not the first time universal preschool education has been proposed…[In the past], as now, the arguments in favor of preschool education were that it would reduce school failure, lower dropout rates, increase test scores, and produce a generation of more competent high school graduates….Preschool education will achieve none of these results."

What Zigler recognized is that a child's academic and personal growth turn on a lot more than preschool. Family, natural abilities, neighborhood, and life experiences easily outweigh the influence of preschool. Preschools may teach children how to count, follow directions, and get along; Zigler himself favors universal preschool as a means to achieve school readiness. But preschool alone, like Head Start alone, confers no lasting advantage. To put all children on an equal footing would require genetic engineering, surrogate parents, and for many kids, home away from home.

Underlying moves for more government preschool programs is the mistaken idea that today's preschoolers aren't prepared for kindergarten. The quiet truth is that 70 percent of preschool-aged children already attend preschools, and the gap in participation rates between preschoolers from high- and low-income families has narrowed from 28 percentage points to just 13 points. And, call it old-fashioned, but some parents still prefer to care for their preschoolers at home.

Whether in preschools or with parents, a recent study of children entering kindergarten by the Department of Education found that kids are in top shape on factors kindergarten teachers say are the most important for school readiness--physical health, enthusiasm, and curiosity. In terms of concrete reading and math skills, nearly all, 94 percent, are proficient at recognizing numbers, shapes and counting to 10, and two in three know their ABCs.

It's also in the early years when American students are most competitive internationally. Consider France, England, Denmark, Spain and Belgium where more than 90 percent of 4-year-olds attend public preschools. International tests show that by age 9, when the benefits of preschool should be most apparent, American children outscore nearly all of their universally preschooled peers on tests of reading, math, and science.

While American children start school better prepared than ever, the overall performance of older students continues to decline. Tests show that by eighth grade, Americans start sliding down the international curve. By 12th grade, they hit bottom. The reasons for that decline are debatable-maybe it's low parental involvement, maybe it's cultural change, maybe it's stagnant government schools or some combination thereof. But one thing is certain, it's time to stop blaming preschoolers for the nation's education woes.

In any case, the desirability of programs like Head Start and universal preschool should not hinge only on whether preschool works. More basic is the moral question of whether the government should entrench itself still further in the schooling of children. On this question, both presidential contenders are swimming against a powerful tide--witness the increasing demand across the states for alternatives to government-run schools and the growth of multi-million-dollar private scholarship funds, homeschooling, voucher initiatives and tax credits. Parents are working to loosen the government's grip on education, even as politicians are seeking to extend that hold to preschoolers.

After 35 years without success, it's time politicians reconsider the wisdom of Head Start. When they do, it will be time to let the program go.

In Arizona, for example, the law requires certain child care providers to follow rule R9-5-910, which stipulates Amy's breakfast right down to " 3/4 cup (6 oz.) fluid milk." Politicians have even prescribed napping space and toys, from "dress-up clothes" to "musical instruments."

Many child care regulations may seem reasonable, and no one questions the importance of having children well cared for. But who should decide whether Amy eats Wheaties or Yoplait? The heart of the issue is whether, beyond defining abuse, regulating child care is the proper function of government.

From a practical standpoint, government officials lack the intimate knowledge needed to tailor care to the unique needs of each individual child. Child rearing is an art, not a science. While one child may start reading by age 3, another may not be ready until age 4 or 5. Some children thrive surrounded by many playmates; others withdraw. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in child development to know there is no single right answer for what is best for every child.

Not surprisingly, most parents say quality is their top priority when it comes to choosing care arrangements. And more than nine out of 10 say they are happy with their children's care. Why, then, are there so many reports of low quality care?

The discrepancy arises from differing definitions of quality. No consensus exists, even among so-called experts, on what constitutes high quality care. Some define quality by quantifiable measures such as teacher-child ratios, staff salary, and group size. Parents, on the other hand, often define quality as something less tangible, such as whether a caretaker is warm and loving, trustworthy and reliable.

For instance, one well-publicized report rated the care in more than 75 percent of child care centers studied as "mediocre." The research team defined mediocre care as that which met the children's health and safety needs and offered warmth, support and educational experiences. In all probability, had parents examined these centers, they would have found the care "very good" or even "excellent." Perfectly reasonable people can disagree about what constitutes good care.

Advocates of expanding the government's role in child care say caring for children is too important to be left to parents. Yet the importance of child care is partly what makes it unsuited to government control.

Consider an equally important influence in many children's lives: religion. Few Americans, liberal or conservative, believe government should decide whether a child becomes Catholic, Mormon or Baptist. That is not because religious choice isn't important, but precisely because it is.

For many, religion is life's compass. It guides our selection of friends, our pursuit of education, our choice of careers and even our decisions to marry and raise children. From cradle to grave, few aspects of life are untouched by religious values.

We demand the separation of church and state, not solely because it is in the Constitution, but because religion is an important subject of personal conscience and belief. Child rearing, and its component child care, is no more or less personal. Like religion, it is a means through which we shape our children's attitudes, behaviors and values. It deserves the same respect and protection from government intrusion for the same reasons.

Here is a pointer for our elected friends who continue to be overcome with activism: Relax. And for goodness sake, let Amy eat her Yoplait.

"Universal preschool" is the education establishment's catchphrase for expanding the public school system to include all 3- and 4-year-olds, and Gore is making it a centerpiece of his presidential run. "If you elect me president, I will make high-quality preschool available to every child," he announced earlier this month in Denver.

Universal preschool proponents like the vice president believe that preschool improves a child's early school performance which, in turn, improves later school performance and produces a generation of more competent young adults. "Quality preschool can lead to higher IQs, higher reading and achievement levels, higher graduation rates and greater success in the workplace," Gore recently told new graduates in Iowa. It sounds so reasonable. But the sad fact is that experience has proven otherwise.

Since the 1960s millions of children have been placed in private and public intervention programs. Benefits have been fleeting.

Consider Head Start. The nation's largest federal preschool program has served more than 15 million children since 1965. But according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which assembled the most comprehensive synthesis of Head Start impact studies to date, Head Start has failed to have a lasting impact on child development. These studies show that by the time children enter second grade, any short-term cognitive, social and emotional gains experienced by Head Start children have completely vanished. Head Start children's achievement test scores, IQ scores, achievement motivation scores, self-esteem and social behavior scores are no better than those of their demographically comparable non-Head Start peers. A more recent study by the General Accounting Office confirmed the HHS finding. There is no evidence that Head Start provides lasting benefits.

Most proponents of Head Start say they just need a little more research, more time, and -- not surprisingly -- more money. But 33 years, $35 billion, and 15 million children have passed through the Head Start schoolyard gates since 1965. That's more than enough time and resources to create a successful program, if that were possible. Nor is Head Start unique. Forty years of results from similar intervention programs show that while short-term benefits are possible, lasting gains are elusive.

As a group, many professional educators have resisted coming to terms with the mounting evidence that the "promise" of preschool is an empty one. But a few have been honest enough to consider the clear implications of decades of experience and research. Preschool enthusiasts would be wise to consider the views of one of the most outstanding scholars in the child development field: Edward Zigler, co-founder of Head Start and director of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University. Zigler says candidly, "We simply cannot inoculate children in one year against the ravages of a life of deprivation." As far back as 1987, when universal preschool was on the political scene, he noted, "This is not the first time universal preschool education has been proposed. . . . Then, as now, the arguments in favor of preschool education were that it would reduce school failure, lower dropout rates, increase test scores, and produce a generation of more competent high school graduates. . . . Preschool education will achieve none of these results."

Is there any reason to believe that public preschool would provide children with more lasting benefits than model programs of the past? Not likely. Let's face it, K-12 public schools are not exactly bastions of excellence. The establishment's failings are well known. Dropout rates exceed 50 percent in some cities, achievement scores rank abysmally against international peers, and all the while spending is increasing. It takes a great leap of faith to believe public preschools would somehow buck this trend.

Not surprisingly, few parents are clamoring for public preschool. In fact, 96 percent of parents report being satisfied with their child care arrangements, including preschool, according to the nation's most comprehensive child care survey conducted under the Department of Health and Human Services. That is hardly a people's mandate for new government preschools.

Meanwhile, a national grassroots education reform movement has swept through two-thirds of the states, offering vouchers, tax credits, charter schools and multi-million dollar private scholarship funds. Parents are working to loosen the government's grip on K-12 education, even as the vice president is seeking to extend that hold to preschoolers.

Given that most recent effective education reforms have involved decentralization and greater parental involvement -- whether through public charter schools, school choice or homeschooling -- it is hard to argue that the answer to poor school performance is putting kids into troubled public schools two years sooner.

Imagine how cruel it would have been in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory if Charlie's ticket had turned out to be a hoax; how sad to have raised his expectations to then turn him away from the factory gate. But that's just a story, and Charlie is fictitious. The movement for universal preschool is real, and preschool policies affect millions of young children every day. Although the Vice President means well, he's no Willy Wonka. And he's not doing children any favors by selling them universal preschool as a golden ticket.]]> Tue, 10 Aug 1999 00:00:00 EDT http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5563 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5564 MAKE NO MISTAKE: The push for universal preschool is on. Already the state of Georgia offers free preschool to every 4-year-old, and New York is phasing in a statewide system. Legislators in California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are itching to follow suit. If Al Gore is elected president in 2000, this state-by-state expansion could be preempted by a federal mandate. As the vice president recently told a Denver audience, "If you elect me president, I will make high-quality preschool available to every child."

Naturally, public officials hedge when asked whether preschool should be mandatory. But supporters call it a "necessity" for every child, a clear indication that calls for compulsory attendance loom in the shadows. Vermont legislator Bill Suchmann, for example, who introduced a bill to study the cost of compulsory preschool, denies that he advocates compulsory attendance -- but says only compulsion can guarantee "equal educational opportunity."

The theory is that putting kids on the "right track" will get them to the "right destination." Gore explains, "The right kind of start -- through quality preschool -- can lead to higher IQs, higher reading and achievement levels, higher graduation rates, and greater success in the workplace." Yet, after hundreds of experimental preschool intervention programs over more than thirty years, there is no evidence that preschool is the cure-all Gore describes.

Supporters of universal preschool, like the church leaders who dismissed the Copernican theory of the solar system, prefer their convictions to the evidence. They invariably point to the Perry Preschool Project to show that preschool confers lasting benefits on kids. That 1960s project tracked 123 children deemed "at-risk" through age 27. Half of them attended preschool as 3- and 4-year-olds, the other half didn't. According to the research team, "Program participation had positive effects on adult crime, earnings, wealth, welfare dependence, and commitment to marriage." The Perry research team seized on these results to produce the oft-cited "fact" that preschool provides "taxpayers a return on investment of $ 7.16 on the dollar."

It wasn't long before independent peer reviewers uncovered sizable sampling and methodological flaws in the Perry study. For example, preschool participants, but not the control group, had to have a parent at home during the day, which might have inflated the Perry findings. More important, in three decades the Perry results have never been replicated. Undeterred, both the California Department of Education and the New York State Board of Regents recently relied on the spurious cost-benefit analysis of the Perry Preschool Project to garner support for their universal preschool legislation.

Preschool proponents also shrug off inconvenient findings from Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for low-income children. Like universal preschool, Head Start is largely public-school-based, serves 3- and 4-year-olds, and espouses the mission of "school readiness." As the nation's largest and oldest preschool program, Head Start is filled with lessons for educators.

The most comprehensive synthesis of Head Start impact studies to date was published in 1985 by the Department of Health and Human Services. It showed that by the time children enter the second grade, any cognitive, social, and emotional gains by Head Start children have vanished. By second grade, that is, the achievement test scores, IQs, achievement-motivation scores, self-esteem, and social behavior scores of Head Start students are indistinguishable from those of their demographically comparable peers. The net gain to children and taxpayers is zero.

The first line of defense for Head Start proponents is to complain that the program has had too little money and too little time. But it has spent $ 35 billion over 34 years, which ought to be enough money and time to create a successful program if that were possible.

The second line of defense is to blame public schools. Head Start defenders claim that the benefits of preschool would be sustained if public schools shaped up. But there is no evidence to support this theory. And even if there were, there is little reason to think that the public schools will rise to the task.

Take Goals 2000, the plan hatched by President Bush and the nation's governors in 1990. One goal was for American schools to rank first internationally in math and science. The most recent findings of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study place U.S. twelfth graders 19th out of 21 countries in math and 16th out of 21 countries in science. Another goal was safe classrooms. A joint report of the National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics published in 1998 shows that more than half the nation's public schools experienced serious crimes in the past few years. Maybe the public schools, too, just "need more time."

The most common line of defense is simply to deny the facts, although a few educators have been willing to be honest. Consider the views of child-development scholar Edward Zigler, a founder of Head Start and director of Yale University's Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. As far back as 1987, when educators were debating the merits of universal preschool, he warned, "This is not the first time universal preschool education has been proposed. . . . [In the past], as now, the arguments in favor of preschool education were that it would reduce school failure, lower dropout rates, increase test scores, and produce a generation of more competent high school graduates. . . . Preschool education will achieve none of these results."

What Zigler recognized is that a child's academic performance and personal growth turn on a lot more than preschool. Factors such as genetics, family, neighborhood, and life experiences from birth onward easily outweigh the influence of preschool. Preschools may teach children how to count, follow directions, and get along; Zigler himself favors universal preschool as a means to achieve school readiness. But preschool alone confers no lasting advantage. To put all children on an equal footing would require genetic engineering, surrogate parents, and for many kids, homes away from home.

In any case, the desirability of universal preschool should not hinge only on whether preschool works. Even more basic is the moral question of whether the government should entrench itself still further in the schooling of children. On this question, Al Gore and his allies are swimming against a powerful tide -- witness the grass-roots movement sweeping through the states, offering charter schools, home-schooling, multi-million-dollar private scholarship funds, vouchers, and tax credits. Parents are working to loosen the government's grip on K-12 education, even as the vice president is seeking to extend that hold to preschoolers. The most effective education reforms of the 1990s have featured decentralization, greater parental involvement, and private alternatives -- while universal preschool is a throwback to the era of "government knows best."]]> Mon, 09 Aug 1999 00:00:00 EDT http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5564 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5483 It's been 33 years since the Head Start program was founded in hopes that it would end what President Johnson described as the "pattern of poverty." Perhaps, its founders reasoned, federally subsidized early intervention could help all children enter school on an equal footing and thereby give disadvantaged children opportunities formerly reserved to the middle and upper classes. Unfortunately, the experiment has fallen short of fulfilling that hope.

Not surprisingly, given the euphoria surrounding Head Start from its inception, the program's proponents are struggling with the truth as they try to keep Head Start alive. For example, Inspector General June Gibbs of the Department of Health and Human Services recently wrote, "There is clear evidence of the positive impacts of Head Start services." Like other defenders of Head Start, she is stuck at the first step in the grieving process, denial. What Gibbs neglects to mention is that the "positive impacts" are only temporary. While enrolled, students show improvement on measures of academic and social achievement. But all gains diminish and then disappear entirely within a few years of exiting the program.

HHS summarized Head Start's short-lived impact this way: "In the long run, cognitive and socioemotional test scores of former Head Start students do not remain superior to those of disadvantaged children who did not attend Head Start." More recently, the General Accounting Office reported that there is simply no evidence that Head Start provides lasting benefits. Essentially, children end up back where they started. Those findings are consistent with 40 years of research on early intervention that shows that short-term benefits are possible but lasting gains are elusive.

Applying Ockham's razor, if students test the same with or without Head Start after a year or two, there is absolutely no reason to put them in Head Start in the first place.

The only early intervention program that appears to have had a lasting impact on children is the Abecedarian Project, launched in 1972. Most children entered that lavish experiment at five months of age. Year round, the children spent eight hours a day, five days a week in an educational daycare center. They also received free medical care, dietary supplements, social service support, and extra support in school from kindergarten through age eighth grade. What the Abecedarian children really had was home away from home.

Ron Haskins, former administrative director of the Abecedarian Project, points out that it was conducted under ideal circumstances with skilled researchers, capable staffs with lots of training and ample budgets. "It seems unwise to claim that the benefits produced by such exemplary programs would necessarily be produced by ordinary preschool programs conducted in communities across the United States," he concludes. We agree. It is highly unlikely that regular preschool programs, or Head Start, could ever replicate those results. In 40 years, no other public or private program has.

President Clinton recently pledged to improve education for America's children when he proposed a 13 percent increase in funding for Head Start (funding has tripled in the past 10 years), heeding cries of "We just need more money!" and "We just need more time!" Anger and bargaining are the second and third steps in the grieving process. Thirty-three years, $35 billion, and 15 million children have passed under the Head Start bridge since 1965, and that's more than enough time and resources to create, if it were possible, a successful program.

Defenders of Head Start claim the program should be considered successful because it cannot be held responsible for "fade out," or what happens after the children enter the public school system. Valid or not, the argument does not change the reality of the situation. The naked truth is that one to two years after entering public school, children from Head Start programs score no differently on tests of academic achievement, social behavior, emotional adjustment and other measurable outcomes than do their non-Head Start peers.

When the emotional appeals are cleared from the table, what is left is a costly but unsuccessful experiment. Given the importance of a good education to a child's health and welfare, we sympathize with those who are attempting to hang on to Head Start. Yet we need to grieve and move on (the final step in the grieving process). Head Start is not working. Accept that, and let it go.

Across the country legislators are deciding whether to require public school districts to provide no-fee prekindergarten classes for all three- and four-year-olds. Georgia and New York have implemented universal preschool programs for four-year-olds, and other states have taken steps in that direction. Those programs are voluntary so far, but there have been calls for mandatory participation.

Most advocates of public preschool argue that early schooling of low-income children is an investment that pays off in the long term by reducing the number of children who will perform poorly in school, become teenage parents, commit criminal acts, or depend on welfare. Other advocates of public preschool see it as a way to subsidize child care.

Experience provides little reason to believe universal preschool would significantly benefit children, regardless of family income. For nearly 40 years, local, state, and federal governments and diverse private sources have funded early intervention programs for low-income children, and benefits to the children have been few and fleeting. There is also evidence that middle-class children gain little, if anything, from preschool. Benefits to children in public preschools are unlikely to be greater or more enduring.

Public preschool for younger children is irresponsible, given the failure of the public school system to educate the children currently enrolled. The desire to "do something" for young children should be tempered by the facts, and proposals for universal preschool should be rejected.

But these "expert" recommendations for a federal child care program are fundamentally at odds with what parents want. Rather than listen to the so-called child care professionals, let's listen to the real pros: parents.

Parents want time to care for their own children. Studies conducted by the Families and Work Institute show that more than two of three employed parents say they do not have enough time with their children. Families speak of a "time famine" -- they need more time with each other, less time in the workplace. According to a poll conducted for Glamour, 88 percent of all women agreed with the statement, "If I could afford it, I would rather be at home with my children." Several other polls have shown that fewer than 15 percent of all parents favor working full-time when they have young children. In a recent poll conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide, respondents were asked to rate nine different child care options on a scale of 1 to 10. Predictably, care by a child's own mother, father or family member came in first, second and third place—care in day care centers took last place.

Parents trust family, not "professionals," to care for their children. When a recent Newsweek poll asked parents where they turn for advice and guidance about how to raise their children, they reported seeking guidance from grandparents, relatives, friends and religious leaders. Coming up last? You guessed it -- advice from child care workers. And day care centers, which offer the care that professionals lobby the government to pay for, are the last place in which most parents would like to place their children. The fact that fewer than 15 percent of the nation's children are cared for in child care centers attests to that.

The vast majority of parents are content to manage their child care affairs without government intervention.

Parents can manage their child care responsibilities. What about parents who, for whatever reason, need to rely on day care? Is finding high-quality affordable day care as difficult as child care professionals suggest? Not according to parents. Seventy percent of parents surveyed by Newsweek said finding good day care is no problem at all. Finally, the most comprehensive survey ever conducted on child care reported that 95 percent of all low-income parents are satisfied with their current child care arrangements.

The latest proposals by the professional advocates will do a lot more for those advocates than they ever will for children. Take, for instance, the center's recommendation that up to 25 percent of any new federal child care funds be earmarked for worker salaries. Funny, it's not quite clear how that would help children. And the center certainly wasn't representing parents when it requested more money. After all, higher salaries mean higher child care bills. I have yet to hear a parent ask to pay more for child care.

If you still think this movement is about helping parents, keep reading. Consider these remarks from Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the prime mover behind a federal child care bill enacted 10 years ago: "The fact is that I spent eight years in getting the child-care bill passed in Congress, and at its zenith, there was never a child-care movement in the country. There was a coalition of child-advocacy groups, and a few large international unions that put up hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we created in the mind of the leadership of Congress that there was a child-care movement -- but there was nobody riding me. And not one of my colleagues believed that their election turned on it for a moment. There wasn't a parents' movement."

A vast majority of parents are content to manage their child care affairs without government intervention, and what they really need is an across-the-board tax reduction to enable them to do to just that.

Former school teacher and current full-time mother Susie Dutcher said it best when she testified recently before the Senate Finance Committee. "I can tell you that taxes are far and away the biggest portion of our family budget. There are many things I would like to do with my husband's earnings. I'd like to buy more books for Lincoln, Elizabeth, and Mary Margaret and put more money in their college fund, but you've already seen fit to use that money funding closed-captioning for the Jerry Springer show. I'd love to get ballet lessons for Elizabeth, but my money is tied up buying food stamps for the deceased. . . . Call us greedy, but my husband and I would like for the most part to make our own choices concerning the fruit of our labor."

Congress and the day care "professionals" should take a lesson from the real pros and give them a break, not another government program.

On October 23, 1997, the Clinton administration will host the White House Conference on Child Care. The administration is expected to announce several initiatives to expand federal control over day care, ranging from increased federal subsidies to public education campaigns. Those federal initiatives are misguided, largely because they seriously misread the true state of child care in the United States.

Advocates of increased government involvement in child care generally argue that (1) there is a shortage of child care facilities, (2) the facilities that do exist are not affordable, and (3) unregulated day care is harmful to children. But the push for federal child care standards and more federal subsidies to make sure that all children have a "strong and healthy start in life" is unnecessary and misguided. There is no child care crisis.

Ninety-six percent of parents are satisfied with their child care arrangements; child care fees have not changed in real terms since the late 1970s; and the number of child care providers has kept pace with the swelling demand for child care. Likewise, the National Day Care Home Study conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services found no indication that unregulated family day care was either harmful or dangerous to children. In fact, family day care caters successfully to the diverse needs of the children in care. The child care market is healthy and heterogeneous, reflecting the diversity of its buyers.

Given the facts--that parents are satisfied with their children's care and that high-quality care is both available and affordable even for low-income parents--Congress should resist any attempt to increase funding for child care and to impose federal standards on providers and parents.

The regulation of day care is 100 years old this year.[1] In the past 15 to 20 years, however, day-care regulation has come to consume $47 million of taxpayers' money.[2] Today, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have some day-care regulations. More significant, day-care facilities are also subject to a host of local zoning, building, health, fire, and safety statutes. These regulations, which vary from state to state and municipality to municipality, can dictate everything from the time a facility opens to the width of the exit door. The intent of these regulations is to ensure minimum health and safety standards for the children and to guarantee responsible care by the day-care provider. Unfortunately, many requirements do little to achieve these aims, while a major effect of regulation has been to raise the cost of day-care services, driving providers underground and limiting the number of children who can benefit. Unnecessary regulations are stifling the supply of day care at a time when the need has never been greater and shows every sign of continuing to surge.