Good Intentions, Bad Policy

Brooks is right to slam this misguided ballot initiative in California.

The problem with Prop 82 is that it seems to have been devised under the supposition that it takes a bureaucratic megalopolis to raise a child. Instead of focusing on those in need, the initiative would create a vast, universal program, displacing much of what now exists. Currently, 65 percent of the state's 4-year-olds are in preschool. Under the plan, the state would assume the costs of those kids, and try to increase total preschool enrollment to just over 70 percent.

In other words, roughly three-quarters of the program's funds would go toward kids who are already in preschool. Only 8.4 percent of the budget would be spent on high-risk kids who wouldn't already be attending preschool. This is public sector empire-building at its worst.

Furthermore, the initiative would hand control of this centralized program to the same bureaucracy that is already doing a mediocre job with the state's K-12 programs. It would create the same stultifying certification process that keeps good people out of schools. It would create the same special-interest rigidities that make the current education system so difficult to reform.

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Good Intentions, Bad Policy

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: June 4, 2006

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/opinion/04brooks.html

If you want to relive the tragedy of American liberalism, take a gander toward California, where voters will decide Tuesday on Proposition 82, which would create a universal preschool program for the state's 4-year-olds.

Prop 82 starts with a true and noble premise: that the world would be better off if more children had access to preschool. If there is one thing we know from research and common sense, it is that if you take a kid from a disorganized home in a stressful neighborhood, where nobody is reading bedtime stories and where the vocabulary in daily use is small, and you put that kid in a quality preschool with books, stability and conversation, the results can be impressive.

That kid is more likely to be able to recognize numbers and letters, more likely to be able to predict events in a storybook, more likely to do better on vocabulary tests. Moreover, because the kid will be in a structured environment, he or she is more likely to develop social skills and self-control.

Experts disagree over how long these preschool effects last, but the bulk of the evidence suggests that disadvantaged kids enrolled in quality preschools have a better shot at graduating from high school and avoiding prison. As a result, many scholars have concluded that money spent on preschool more than pays for itself over time...