Obama's Cash For Universal Preschool
Dec 12, 2013 23:04:21 #
Obama's Cash for Universal Preschool
Michelle Malkin | Dec 11, 2013
It's elementary: When Democrats find themselves in political trouble, they reach for your wallets. After squandering billions on an ineffectual stimulus, failed green energy boondoggles and the disastrous Unaffordable Care Act, the Obama White House wants to dump $75 billion more into "free" preschool for all. That'll solve everything.
Government-funded universal pre-K is a moldy oldie of the progressive left, recycled perennially by Democratic presidential speechwriters in need of State of the Union address padding. But this time, the Fed Ed crowd is redoubling its efforts with support from big-business statists and academic shills.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, once a bitter campaign target of the White House, is now Team Obama's biggest cheerleader on expanding preschool funding. And Austan Goolsbee, a former top Obama economic adviser and University of Chicago prof, took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal this week to crusade for more public "investments" in early childhood education. At "$10,000 per child," Goolsbee argued, universal pre-K is a "bargain."
Why anyone would take the financial advice of Austan Goolsbee is beyond me. I'll remind you that this is the same Austan Goolsbee who vigorously championed extending credit to the uncreditworthy. In a 2007 op-ed for The New York Times, he derided prescient critics who called subprime mortgages "irresponsible." Goolsbee instead preferred to describe the doomed financial instruments as "innovations in the mortgage market" to expand the pool of homebuyers. We don't need economics Ph.D.'s to see how that worked out.
Goolsbee, like his Fed Ed allies on both the left and right, cites the well-worn Perry Preschool Project in Michigan to support Obama's top-down push for subsidizing preschool for all. But that pilot program, run at a cost of $19,000 per child, took place more than a half-century ago. A more comprehensive and updated review of the literature by the Brookings Institution's Russ Whitehurst released last month found that the vaunted academic benefits of full-time pre-K are, in fact, negligible.
Whitehurst is a developmental psychologist by training who has spent the majority of his career designing and evaluating programs intended to enhance the cognitive development of young children. He warns that universal preschool boosters "ignore research showing negative impacts on children who receive child care supported through the federal child development block grant program."
Moreover, his research shows, the Nanny Staters have downplayed evidence that "the universal pre-k programs in Georgia and Oklahoma, which are closest to what the Obama administration has proposed, have had, at best, only small impacts on later academic achievement."
A. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch points to even more reason for skepticism by way of a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services report about a congressionally mandated study of approximately 5,000 3- and 4-year-olds who were randomly assigned to either a control group or a group that had access to the federal Head Start program. It found that "at the end of kindergarten and first grade ... the Head Start children and the control group children were at the same level on many of the measures studied."
Let's set all of this junk science aside for the moment. There's a bigger elephant in the room. As I've pointed out for years, these cradle-to-grave government education/day care services encourage drive-through, drop-off parenting. Subsidizing this phenomenon cheats children, undermines family responsibilities and breeds resentment among childless workers who are forced to pay for costly social services.
The nationalized preschool promoters, led by feckless bureaucrats who piled mounds of debt onto our children with endless Keynesian pipe dreams, claim that new multibillion-dollar "investments" in public education will "benefit the economy." But ultimately, it's not about the money or improved academic outcomes for Fed Ed. The increasing federal encroachment into our children's lives at younger and younger ages is about control. These clunkers don't need more time and authority over our families. They need a permanent recess.
Michelle Malkin | Dec 11, 2013
It's elementary: When Democrats find themselves in political trouble, they reach for your wallets. After squandering billions on an ineffectual stimulus, failed green energy boondoggles and the disastrous Unaffordable Care Act, the Obama White House wants to dump $75 billion more into "free" preschool for all. That'll solve everything.
Government-funded universal pre-K is a moldy oldie of the progressive left, recycled perennially by Democratic presidential speechwriters in need of State of the Union address padding. But this time, the Fed Ed crowd is redoubling its efforts with support from big-business statists and academic shills.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, once a bitter campaign target of the White House, is now Team Obama's biggest cheerleader on expanding preschool funding. And Austan Goolsbee, a former top Obama economic adviser and University of Chicago prof, took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal this week to crusade for more public "investments" in early childhood education. At "$10,000 per child," Goolsbee argued, universal pre-K is a "bargain."
Why anyone would take the financial advice of Austan Goolsbee is beyond me. I'll remind you that this is the same Austan Goolsbee who vigorously championed extending credit to the uncreditworthy. In a 2007 op-ed for The New York Times, he derided prescient critics who called subprime mortgages "irresponsible." Goolsbee instead preferred to describe the doomed financial instruments as "innovations in the mortgage market" to expand the pool of homebuyers. We don't need economics Ph.D.'s to see how that worked out.
Goolsbee, like his Fed Ed allies on both the left and right, cites the well-worn Perry Preschool Project in Michigan to support Obama's top-down push for subsidizing preschool for all. But that pilot program, run at a cost of $19,000 per child, took place more than a half-century ago. A more comprehensive and updated review of the literature by the Brookings Institution's Russ Whitehurst released last month found that the vaunted academic benefits of full-time pre-K are, in fact, negligible.
Whitehurst is a developmental psychologist by training who has spent the majority of his career designing and evaluating programs intended to enhance the cognitive development of young children. He warns that universal preschool boosters "ignore research showing negative impacts on children who receive child care supported through the federal child development block grant program."
Moreover, his research shows, the Nanny Staters have downplayed evidence that "the universal pre-k programs in Georgia and Oklahoma, which are closest to what the Obama administration has proposed, have had, at best, only small impacts on later academic achievement."
A. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch points to even more reason for skepticism by way of a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services report about a congressionally mandated study of approximately 5,000 3- and 4-year-olds who were randomly assigned to either a control group or a group that had access to the federal Head Start program. It found that "at the end of kindergarten and first grade ... the Head Start children and the control group children were at the same level on many of the measures studied."
Let's set all of this junk science aside for the moment. There's a bigger elephant in the room. As I've pointed out for years, these cradle-to-grave government education/day care services encourage drive-through, drop-off parenting. Subsidizing this phenomenon cheats children, undermines family responsibilities and breeds resentment among childless workers who are forced to pay for costly social services.
The nationalized preschool promoters, led by feckless bureaucrats who piled mounds of debt onto our children with endless Keynesian pipe dreams, claim that new multibillion-dollar "investments" in public education will "benefit the economy." But ultimately, it's not about the money or improved academic outcomes for Fed Ed. The increasing federal encroachment into our children's lives at younger and younger ages is about control. These clunkers don't need more time and authority over our families. They need a permanent recess.
Dec 13, 2013 12:37:14 #
I am so angry with this I can't comment. If you are wondering I did not vote for the present regime and he got in anyhow. What's is a rebel supposed to do?
Dec 13, 2013 14:01:13 #
"When Democrats find themselves in political trouble, they reach for your wallets." Well-said, Michelle! Thanks, Gitzo, for passing this on.
Dec 13, 2013 17:41:43 #
GeneB wrote:
I am so angry with this I can't comment. If you are wondering I did not vote for the present regime and he got in anyhow. What's is a rebel supposed to do?
Guillotines.......!!
Dec 13, 2013 20:21:50 #
Are the dems really in political trouble? Have you seen the the numbers on the repubs? A party at war with itself is going down ...
Dec 13, 2013 23:39:58 #
Larrymbst wrote:
Are the dems really in political trouble? Have you seen the the numbers on the repubs? A party at war with itself is going down ...
In case you haven't been paying attention, obama's approval numbers are in the toilet. 2014-16 looking good for the Pubs as long as obamacare is on the front burner!
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As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic M0RON."
----H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
AND 93 YEARS LATER MENCKEN'S PREDICTION FOR OUR ONCE GREAT REPUBLIC HAS COME TO PASS DURING THE REIGN OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!
Dec 14, 2013 03:33:02 #
Larrymbst wrote:
Are the dems really in political trouble? Have you seen the the numbers on the repubs? A party at war with itself is going down ...
I hate to tell you this, Larry, but every time you make a post, you sound just like that "other" great political "expert" on here, Ole Sarg! (and I'm guessing that most people give you just about as much credibility as Ole Sargie.....)
Dec 14, 2013 03:42:18 #
GeneB wrote:
I am so angry with this I can't comment. If you are wondering I did not vote for the present regime and he got in anyhow. What's is a rebel supposed to do?
Two things, Gene........keep reminding all the DemocRATS you come across whose idea Obummercare was, and get ready to VOTE in 2014 & 2016 ! Believe me, by this time a year from now, we won't need to try to convince ANYONE what a disaster Ohomocare is!
Dec 14, 2013 14:35:00 #
Was healthcare reform an Obama idea? Nonsense! It wAs designed by the same people who created Mass system . I believe under Romney. You have short memories but convenient. By the way people in Mass. Want to keep their system just as we we all want to keep Medicare
Dec 14, 2013 17:17:20 #
Larrymbst wrote:
Was healthcare reform an Obama idea? Nonsense! It wAs designed by the same people who created Mass system . I believe under Romney. You have short memories but convenient. By the way people in Mass. Want to keep their system just as we we all want to keep Medicare
Yeah, and who is it forcing it down our throats, hmmm? Your apparently blind allegiance to Mr. Obama is something you should take a step back from, unless, of course, pathological closed-mindedness is how you like being perceived and defined?
Dec 14, 2013 17:38:07 #
Notice no response to my comment. By the way law waS voted on and passed approved by the Supreme Court Exactly who is closed minded ?hardly forced!
Dec 14, 2013 17:56:13 #
My blind allegiance is to the laws as passed, consistent with the constitution
This applies to the ACA as well as the laws that have passed previously whether by a Dem or Repub administration. Apparently you do not share this view of the way this country works.I am sure you're still losing sleep over the civil rights law or Roe..or whatever you personally have issues with. Too bad.
This applies to the ACA as well as the laws that have passed previously whether by a Dem or Repub administration. Apparently you do not share this view of the way this country works.I am sure you're still losing sleep over the civil rights law or Roe..or whatever you personally have issues with. Too bad.
Dec 17, 2013 03:08:05 #
Larrymbst wrote:
Notice no response to my comment. By the way law waS voted on and passed approved by the Supreme Court Exactly who is closed minded ?hardly forced!
The reason no one is responding to anything you say, Larry, is because you sound like a "low-info", "low-intellect" voter.
Dec 17, 2013 03:14:26 #
Gitzo wrote:
The reason no one is responding to anything you say, Larry, is because you sound like a "low-info", "low-intellect" voter.
Wow! You Nailed my reason square on the head. ESP?
Dec 17, 2013 13:55:06 #
So, in lieu of responding let's call names and then agree with each other and I'm the "low intellect" voter..What a waste of time talking to people incapable of reason but real capable of hate ...No solutions just anger.. I get it..
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