What Biden didn’t tell you about universal preschool
Washington Examiner
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Few areas provide a starker contrast between Democrats and Republicans than that of early childhood education. That gap was on full display in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last week.
Biden and his party believe that 12 years of government education is, in the president’s words, “not enough to win the economic competition of the 21st century.” They want an additional two years, providing universal preschool to 3- and 4-year-olds. That would be two more years of unnecessary federal government influence on people’s lives.
A BANAL FAILURE OF A STATE OF THE UNION
“Studies show,” Biden claimed, “that children who go to preschool are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- or four-year degree, no matter the background they came from.”
This isn’t really true. He could be talking about the decade-old study of just 123 black children in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which included not just intensive classroom instruction but also weekly home visits to low-income black families. The results from that study have not been replicated on a larger scale.
A 2012 study conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services on 5,000 participants in the federal government’s Head Start preschool program found that “the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole.”
Democrats often respond by saying the quality of Head Start programs studied by HHS was mixed and that if the federal government properly regulates preschool programs, with minimum salaries and training requirements, then the results will be better. For example, a recent study of a Boston preschool program that spends an astronomical $20,000 per student each year found it boosted high school graduation and SAT test-taking and cut disciplinary problems. But the benefits were not as extensive as Biden wants you to believe. The biggest beneficiaries of that program were affluent white boys, who saw significant gains in high school graduation and college enrollment. White girls showed no difference, and black students in the study showed gains only on SAT test-taking and fewer disciplinary problems.
That’s not nothing, but it’s also not the home run that Biden claims it is.
Larger studies of broader preschool programs are even less promising. A recent study of Tennessee’s preschool program showed it did harm. “Children who attended [the Tennessee preschool program] had marginally significant higher rates of school rule violations, and a significantly greater proportion of [program] participants had special education placements.”
Funny, Biden didn’t mention that study.
The more Democrats push to regulate preschools, the fewer options parents have to develop the education and child care best for them.
Degree and salary requirements may or may not improve quality, but they definitely drive up costs. So do federal nondiscrimination requirements, which would ban many faith-based preschools from the program.
The divide between Democrats and Republicans on early education could not be starker. Democrats want tax dollars flowing through government-approved schools run by government-trained unionized teachers so parents can work full time, doing something other than caring for their children.
Republicans would rather the money go to families so parents can choose their work-life balance, perhaps full-time work for one parent, part-time work for another, and part-time preschool at a local church for their children. For some, it would mean one parent working and one at home.
The federal government should support what parents choose. It should not push people into ineffective and costly tax-funded programs.
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