California's Scary Preschool Initiative
Following up on yesterday's post about early childhood education, here's an editorial about the Preschool for All initiative which will be on the ballot in California next June. The initiative is sponsored by yet another actor, Rob Reiner.
This initiative is a bad idea in countless ways. As I posted yesterday, some research shows that long-term preschool benefits are questionable. The initiative mandates that "free" (taxpayer-funded) preschools exist for all 4-year-olds no farther than the local public kindergarten. How much land is available in established neighborhoods for new preschools which aren't on public school property?
Then there's the issue of whether this will lead to mandatory preschool for 4-year-olds and then 3-year-olds. Remember the teacher's quote from yesterday's post: "Since schools are doing so much of the education, nurturing and socialization of kids these days, it's better to get them in earlier..."
Eventually the nanny state may want to take over raising children altogether.
posted by Laura @ 2:34 PM
3 Comments:
Unfortunately, the sheeple of California will fall for this one. "Free" babysitting a year earlier paid for by evil corporations! It is amazing after all these years that people still don't "get it" when it comes to the economics of all the "free" services we receive.
Laura,
I just read the story linked to this post. It doesn't mention that the preschool is supposed to be paid for by a special tax on corporations. Am I remembering incorrectly that that was the plan, did they change that part of it, or did she just neglect to mention it?
Here's the wording from a press release -- looks like they're trying to "sock it to the wealthy" again with a fairly significant tax increase.
"It asks for support from the wealthiest 1% of Californians by increasing their tax rate by 1.7% on the annual income they earn over $800,000 for married couples or $400,000 for individuals."
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