The White House is advocating that the nation provide preschool at taxpayer
expense for all 4-year-olds from low-and-modest income families. President Obama
says, “Education has to start at the earliest possible age,” and insists that “increasing
preschool attendance would raise high school graduation rates, reduce teen
pregnancy and violent crime, and make people more likely to hold stable jobs later
in life.” To some people this makes good common sense. Trouble is, it isn’t true.

Universal preschool has long been a goal of the left — an expensive one.
Is it worth it: The states of Georgia and Oklahoma both have longstanding programs
offering all four-year-old children the government-funded preschool. Georgia’s
program has been in place for twenty years. The price tag is $4300 per child per
year. An evaluation by Georgia State University found that by the end of first grade
there was no difference between the skills of Georgia children who did and did not
attend preschool.

More than 70 percent of Oklahoma’s four-year-olds are enrolled in that state’s
government preschool program. The state spends an amazing $7700 per child
each year. And what are the benefits? Well, the National Association of Educational
Progress, assesses all students for reading levels in fourth grade. Oklahoma
students have actually lost ground in terms of their reading scores since the state
started its universal preschool program 15 years ago.

Of the White House’s push for universal pre-school, House Speaker John Boehner
said, in an interview with the Associated Press, that getting the federal government
involved in early childhood education is a good way to mess it up.

The latest evidence of this was released last November when the results of an
extensive study on Head Start were released. Researchers compared 5000 Head
Start alums with their peers who did not participate in the program.

Head Start was launched in 1965 to get kids from low-income families prepped for
kindergarten. Researchers concluded that Head Start had “little to no impact on
cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of participants.”

Kids who didn’t participate in Head Start were better prepared in math than the
ones who started the program at age three. The results dovetailed with those of
other federal studies of Head Start done in 1969, 1985, and 2005 all showing the
program’s fleeting benefits. Head Start’s current price tag is $9000 per student per
year.

The Left continues to prop up Head Start and push government-funded preschools
as a way to begin influencing kids early in life.

But, loving parents are the best influence of all on little ones. Parents’ daily loving
interactions with their kids, transmits their values and with a little effort, teaches
skills. Parents who want or need care outside home for these little ones, can
evaluate and choose from a web of resources: relatives, friends, home settings, and
wonderful Christian preschools. But what kids need most are strong families.