The Expensive Future of Early Education 
By John McClaughry

Lacking the votes to forthrightly authorize two more grades of public school before kindergarten, and mindful of taxpayer reaction in an election year, the 2006 legislature punted the preschool issue to a summer study committee. Now that committee, chaired by Rep. Duncan Kilmartin (R-Newport), is about to deliver its report to the new legislature.

Six of the nine members have been conspicuous advocates for expanding to universal pre-K. Three of them, Sens. Jim Condos (D-Chittenden) Don Collins (D-Franklin), and Vince Illuzzi (R-Essex-Orleans), were the principal backers of Senate U-pre-K bills that died in the last two legislatures. Of the 34 Vermonters who testified before the committee, at least 33 were ardent backers of universal preschooling.

The early education research findings described in the committee’s draft report were provided by Dr. Jim Squires, hired by the Department of Education to promote more preschooling. One well-qualified Vermont critic of U-pre-K research was invited to make a presentation, but then abruptly disinvited when vice chair Condos learned of it.

So Vermonters skeptical of the alleged benefits of U-pre-K and concerned about its high costs might reasonably expect that its report would be little more than a passionate call for public school expansion, more unionized teachers, snuffing out private day care providers, and of course more taxpayer spending.

Actually, it’s better than that.

First, it clearly recommends that the legislature put a firm legal footing on the current school district practice of paying for U-pre-K out of Education Fund moneys. The current inclusion of U-pre-K pupils in Act 60’s weighted-cost-per-pupil calculation (that determines residential property tax rates) results from a Departmental rule that extralegally amends the education statutes. To set this right, the legislators will actually have to vote on the record. Then, for the first time, their constituents can find out who voted to open the door to as much as $70 million a year in Education Fund spending.

Second, the report recommends capping the number of preschool children that school districts can pay for. All pre-special education children would be included, then children "at risk" of future school failure, then "regular" 3- and 4- year olds up to the cap. This is not without some problems, but it does recognize that the taxpayers can’t keep on paying increasingly higher bills for every nice thing that the educational establishment thinks up. It's not likely, however, that any such cap will long withstand pressure from school districts eager to keep on expanding.

Third, the report recognizes the value of "qualified" private preschool providers. On the down side, the process of "qualifying" will remain under the control of the educational establishment. That will ensure that the private providers must dance to the government’s tune and comply with possibly inflated "quality" standards, or go out of business.

Fourth, parents will not get to choose among qualified providers. They may, however, plead to their school board to contract with the preschool provider the parents favor. Enlightened school boards may agree, but many will want to retain every revenue-producing child for their own programs. It’s not mentioned in the report, but church-sponsored preschools with moral and religious content need not apply, whatever their quality.

On the troublesome side, the report emphasizes the need to combine all "young children" programs into one grand "integrated" structure. For three years a Building Bright Futures Council has been working quietly to design this giant "public-private partnership". Run by a non-governmental board, this mega-nonprofit will take control of 300 million taxpayer dollars each year, and distribute them through twelve regional daycare-preschool-Medicaid czars. The debate over that very big and controversial idea will come in the near future.

The best recommendation from the U-pre-K committee would have been this: the state should give vouchers to parents of children with disabilities or objectively at risk of school failure, to pay for the public or private early education program the parents choose as best suited to their child.

The parents of all other "regular" children, who by third grade will show little or no identifiable educational benefit from having attended a preschool program, would be expected to raise their children to kindergarten age without governmental intrusion and expenditure. After all, the draft report itself declares that "Families have the primary responsibility and right to nurture and educate their child."

One can imagine the horror that such a proposal would evoke among this or any current legislative committee. But aside from helping the poor, dysfunctional, and unusually needy, Big Momma government is not likely to do well for our next generation, nor are taxpayers likely to be content to finance ever-larger programs thought up by the educational establishment "for the children".

--John McClaughry is President of the Ethan Allen Institute (www.ethanallen.org).

Note: The committee’s final public hearing on the draft report will be held in the Statehouse on Thursday, January 25, at 6:30pm.