Alabama's Preschool Example
Republicans interested in re-crafting both our party’s meaning and its messaging would do well to examine an article in today's New York Times on an unlikely trend-setter in pre-K education. The surprise innovator: none other than Alabama, site of the most racially polarized electorate in the country, proud sponsor of the most draconian anti-immigrant law in America, and a consistently unfriendly climate for reform.
The narrative, in typical Times fashion, is not as simple as the headline. The Alabama program aspires to eventual pre-school access for all 4-year olds, while Obama’s proposals concentrate the bulk of their effort on families within 200% of the poverty line -- just under $45,000 for a family of four.
The ambitiousness of the Alabama program reflects its supporters’ sensitivity to particular factors: first, the fact that the state’s public school population, outside a few metropolitan areas, is overwhelmingly lower-middle class means that the program will end up serving mostly as an instrument for low-income families; and second, the politics in a deep red state dictate that any program avoid being classified on its face as a hand-out for poor people.
But the specifics of Alabama’s initiative should not obscure its alliance between pro-growth conservatives who recognize early education’s value in developing a workforce and social conservatives who understand that childcare strengthens the hands of parents by making them more willing and able to work. In other words, two reliable elements of the Republican base have coalesced around what some national talking heads denounced as either more heavy handedness from Washington (a strange critique given that the program is a transfer of dollars back to the states and not a mandate) or as more pandering to parts of Obama’s coalition.
To be sure, Obama is appallingly silent on other fronts: the weak achievement levels of adolescents who are routinely advanced without adequate reading or comprehension skills; the bureaucratic impediments to parents transferring their kids from substandard schools; and the many ways tenure currently warps teacher accountability. And it may well be that parents ought to be offered an option to trade pre-K access for a daycare voucher, especially when only five of the 39 states offering access to preschool education receive high quality marks on national metrics.
But promoting the mobility of the working poor is not pie-in-the sky liberalism, and it impresses all manner of un-poor people who appreciate the pay-off in reviving the weakest links in their community. Letting Obama own such an inherently conservative value is the dumbest kind of politics.
- Comment (39)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (19)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments:
May '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Another great post Mr. Davis. The lesson I take away isn't for the rest of the country to do exactly as Alabama is doing, but rather that the rest of the country i.e. the federal government should stay out of what the 50 states are doing to address their individual challenges.
Oct '10
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
I definitely think this is a good idea; subsidies for programs like preschool and child care are the flip side of work requirements in welfare programs. If we want to compel the underclass to work, we have to make sure their children have somewhere to go while Mom or Dad is at work.
Mar '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
BrentB67:
The lesson I take away isn't for the rest of the country to do exactly as Alabama is doing, but rather that the rest of the country i.e. the federal government should stay out of what the 50 states are doing to address their individual challenges. · 16 minutes ago
Yes, exactly! The one size fits all programs that come out of DC are disastrous. Let the states determine whether and how to implement this type of program.
May '10
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
How does it do that? The Federal Government's own research indicates Head Start makes no difference in eventual student performance. How will this be any different?
And the taxpayers are supposed to pay for this why?
No matter how glittering the promises, or how melifluous the arguments made in their support, ten years from now the pre-K education being pushed for will have achieved nothing more than:
In addition to make it even more difficult to have one parent at home raising children (because of the increased tax load on workers), it will send the powerful message that if a couple works hard and sacrifices to raise their children without government-provided childcare they are chumps.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen (HT Dennis Prager). This is just another add to government's size.
May '10
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
BTW, for anybody who may have forgotten, the national debt has recently crossed $16,500,000,000,000. Still climbing.
How is this supposed to be paid for?
We just borrow more money from China to pay for babysitters? Or just print it?
But hey, free stuff!!!!!!!!
Aug '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
The studies I have read on the subject indicate that more attention on preschool education is not helpful. Benefits that kids have obtained from the head start program are usually gone by the third grade. Young kids are simply not ready to make lasting educational gains.
Aug '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
What's the point of pre-school?
Is it really just fancy day care?
Sep '10
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
No more government programs. Lots of things must end first before we start new stuff.
May '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Nick Stuart: BTW, for anybody who may have forgotten, the national debt has recently crossed $16,500,000,000,000. Still climbing.
How is this supposed to be paid for?
We just borrow more money from China to pay for babysitters? Or just print it?
But hey, free stuff!!!!!!!! · 54 minutes ago
Nick, I am right there with you that the gravest threat we face is the big spender in the mirror and $16.5T of debt more than $1T of which is held by the Chinese all of which is enabled by the Fed.
The key difference here is Alabama has to pay for this as they go. States don't have a Fed and Alabama isn't a basket case like IL, CA, NY, etc. (Birmingham was a local municipal water/sewer issue).
If Alabama wants to pay for this program and the majority of the citizens are paying up for it I don't think that matters to our national debt.
The crime of the federal programs is that less than 50% of our citizens pay income taxes and ~$0.40 of ever $ spent is borrowed from future generations all financed by the Fed.
Oct '10
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Certainly we don't need any more federal programs, but if the states have both the ability and the will to do this we should support them in their efforts.
Oct '10
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
mask: What's the point of pre-school?
Is it really just fancy day care? · 18 minutes ago
Well, yes. That way poor parents can work, as opposed to drawing government benefits. That's the idea, anyway.
Apr '11
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Joseph Eagar
mask: What's the point of pre-school?
Is it really just fancy day care? · 18 minutes ago
Well, yes. That way poor parents can work, as opposed to drawing government benefits. That's the idea, anyway. · 1 hour ago
It really should be sold that way, then....instead of pretending that there are any academic or intellectual benefits to be had from preschool.
Jun '11
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
This is Orwellian.
Hand your children over to the State. Let the State prepare them for a bright, collective future. Let the State shape and mold their values.
Also, a sizeable chunk of funding for these programs does come from "our" tax dollars. TARP is one source of funds among others. It's not just brave, li'l ole Alabama doin' it on their own.
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Several responses remind me why I addressed this piece to Republicans interested in re-crafting the party's message. Not every Republican is: I do encounter conservatives who are comfortable doubling down on a theory that government at every level ought to disengage. Its a viewpoint, albeit one well beyond federalism, and one that no Republican nominee has run on since 1964, to the tune of 39% of the vote. Running to the right of Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma (all of whom are expanding their pre-k programs) is no path back to victory.
As to the issue itself, there is certainly a respectable debate over what pre-school should look like, and the middling record of the 39 preexisting versions proves that reading and cognitive skills need to be emphasized more and that parents ought to have an option of trading a pre-k ticket for vouchers to private or parochial programs, or for straightforward daycare. And I agree that the coverage range for Obama's matching money could be scaled back. But a pro-family agenda is made not just of a safety net or pro-life policies; it requires rewarding work and nurturing children too.
Apr '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
The weakest link in society will bring you down. Artur, thank you for the thoughtful post and you are correct, it should not be owned by the left. I liked your podcast comment that all of us need to take responsibility to discuss the ideas and concepts with others.
Apr '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Preschool can do a great deal for a three year old.
Dec '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
Just think of how the states could do what they and their residents deem best, if every tax dollar that goes to the Federal Department of Education went directly back to them. Close down the Ed Department in full, and send every dollar back to the states where they came from.
Apr '11
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
This is a logical fallacy. You're proposing running to the left of Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Hawaii. That doesn't mean that you're nuts, but nor does it mean that those who disagree with you are nuts. That a red state does something doesn't mean that the national consensus is behind something. After Oregon introduced Concealed Carry licenses under Gov. Goldschmidt, Democrats continued to support gun control in Texas and continued to win; in that case, there really was a long term shift and a couple of terms later Gov. Bush introduced CC.
It's way too early for it to be clear that the AL/GA/OK position is going to win out on this issue, though. Politically, the chief drivers of the project are teachers unions. If they continue their current rate of self-destruction, big government SoCons and confused "pro-growth" conservatives will have a much weaker team.
Partly for the reasons Joseph Eagar suggests, I have some sympathy with your proposal, but the rhetoric is simply wrong.
Aug '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
The federal government throwing borrowed money at a problem is the very definition of "pie-in-the-sky liberalism."
Assuming I agree with the premise that pre-K benefits children and allows parents to go back to work sooner, isn't there a way we can keep Obama from owning the issue without supporting federal transfer payments to the states? There may not be mandates attached yet, but you can be sure they would come in the future after states have become reliant on federal funds.
Mar '12
Re: Alabama's Preschool Example
The parents should be the ones nurturing the children, not the government. Rather than implementing new policies that encourage families to be broken and have daddy state take care of everything, a pro-family agenda would focus on making sure the incentives are for the opposite. The best way to raise children is by having the biological parents do it. "Free" daycare for all just makes it more likely that the biological parents (most likely the father) will not be around because they don't have to be. That isn't nurturing.
And we are doing all this to support a program that likely won't work. The only preschool programs that have been proven to work are ones that have highly engaged parents and staff and cost much more than the government programs plan to largely because of a very small child to "teacher" ratio. When that gets achieved in the existing government schools, let me know. Until then, it is a fantasy to assume that preschool will be any different.
Edited on February 15, 2013 at 1:51pm