Gail Collins, "How Preschool Got Hot": Saving America From Its Death Spiral

So "pre-k" is the latest flavor or the month, intended to save America from its socio-economic death spiral. Good luck!

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "How Preschool Got Hot" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/opinion/collins-how-preschool-got-hot.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0), Gail Collins picks up on this trendy topic. Her opinion piece begins:

"All of a sudden, early childhood education is really, really popular. Everybody’s favorite. If early childhood education were an actor, it would be Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep. If it were a video game, it would be Candy Crush or Angry Birds, minus the spyware.

The other night at the State of the Union speech, President Obama mentioned 'high-quality early education' and John Boehner applauded. Boehner applauded early education! Paul Ryan likes it, too. Prekindergarten is so in, the guys on 'Duck Dynasty' would probably have a good word for it.

Kudos, guys! We certainly don’t want to complain about this. Early education is one of the best tools for breaking the poverty-to-poverty trap. Unfortunately, it only works if it’s high quality, and high quality is expensive. Yet very little of this newfound enthusiasm comes with serious money attached."

Ah yes, there's always a price tag attached, particularly at a time when state and federal debt have reached the stratosphere. Collins's conclusion, which addresses the matter of money:

"It’ll be a huge number of kids, and the classes have to be really small. Also, the teachers have to get much better pay. They go into the business out of love, but when you are talking about medial salaries of $27,000 a year, sometimes love is not enough. All in all, we’re talking about a ton of money.

So here’s the question: How much of the new enthusiasm for early childhood education is real, and how much is just an attempt to dodge the whole inequality debate? Maybe we could agree that no politician is allowed to mention pre-k without showing us the money."

Of course, Collins, who is the founder of the Bonbon School of Journalism which is best practiced from a cushy couch, doesn't mention the "Head Start Impact Study" (see: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/executive_summary_final.pdf), which found:

"Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole."

But not to worry, smiley Nicholas Kristof addresses this concern in his New York Times op-ed entitled "Pre-K, the Great Debate" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/opinion/kristof-pre-k-the-great-debate.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) (my italics):

"Yet early education has always had an impact not through cognitive gains but through long-term improvements in life outcomes. With Perry, Abecedarian and other programs, educational gains fade, yet, mysteriously, there are often long-term improvements on things that matter even more, such as arrest rates and high school graduation rates. The Head Start Impact Study couldn’t examine those outcomes.

Other researchers have, and their findings are almost unanimous. One rigorous study led by Eliana Garces, then of U.C.L.A., found that Head Start graduates were more likely to graduate from high school and attend college than their peers. David Deming of Harvard found that children who attended Head Start were more likely to graduate from high school and less likely as young adults to be 'idle' — out of a job and out of school.

Jens Ludwig of University of Chicago found that Head Start reduced child mortality in elementary years, apparently because of screening and treatment referrals.

. . . .

When experts weigh these benefits against short-term costs, preschool for at-risk kids from low-income families more than pays for itself. (It’s not as clear that this is as true for middle-class kids.) When we have kids growing up in poverty and homes without books, we end up paying one way or the other. We can invest in preschool today (about $8,000 per child per year), or in juvenile detention tomorrow (around $90,000 per child per year)."

But allow me to play devil's advocate: Does every child who does not get the benefit of Head Start end up in juvenile detention? And if the parents of middle class children also demand the same benefit, who is going to foot this hefty bill, running into the hundreds of billions of dollars each year? Ultimately it boils down to a nasty cost-benefit analysis for Kristof's "often" and "more likely." How "often"? How much "more likely"?

Might it not be better, i.e. more apt to yield positive results at a lower cost, to attack the problem at its core, i.e. make a better effort to address poverty in children's homes and crime and violence in their neighborhoods, while also attempting to address the collapse of the family unit in the United States?

I do not have the answers, but I am convinced that pre-K will not come close to providing a panacea for America's burgeoning socio-economic ills.

Thomas Friedman, "Can’t We Do Better?": No

Once again, it's time to be politically incorrect.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Can’t We Do Better?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-cant-we-do-better.html), Thomas Friedman tells us:

"We’re going through a huge technological transformation in the middle of a recession. It requires a systemic response. Democrats who protect teachers’ unions that block reforms to give teachers more ownership and accountability, and who refuse to address long-term entitlement spending that threatens to deprive us of funds to invest in the young, are harming our future. Republicans who block investments in things like early education and immigration reform — today we educate the world’s top talent in our colleges and then send them back to their home countries — are harming our future."

"More funds to invest in the young"? Certainly a compelling thought, but then I look back at myself and my own limitations: No matter how much money the government might have spent on me as a youngster to turn me into a concert pianist, nothing would have helped. I was not destined to play the piano, not then, not now. Notwithstanding my mother's once formidable talents on that instrument, I am tone deaf, or stated otherwise, "genetically indisposed."

Preschool is going to turn American youngsters into rocket scientists? I have my doubts. It is little wonder that the Head Start program has been determined to be useless (see: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337924/head-start-still-useless-michael-g-franc).

Friedman continues:

"[L]iberals need to think more seriously about how we incentivize and unleash risk-takers to start new companies that create growth, wealth and good jobs. To have more employees, we need more employers. Just redividing a slow-growing pie will not sustain the American dream."

Query: Is it remotely possible that we need to think less "about how we incentivize and unleash risk-takers" and more about how we first discover where children's talents lie?

Proclivity to risk for the vast majority of persons is not an advantage. Bet the farm, and you could be staring disaster in the face.

Just a thought . . .

Nicholas Kristof, "Do We Invest in Preschools or Prisons?": Head Start, Costing $8 Billion Per Year, Provides Minimal Benefits

America's national debt might be $17 trillion and spiraling higher, but Nicholas Kristof knows where to spend more money. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Do We Invest in Preschools or Prisons?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-invest-in-preschools-or-prisons.html?_r=0), Kristof writes:

"Growing mountains of research suggest that the best way to address American economic inequality, poverty and crime is — you guessed it! — early education programs, including coaching of parents who want help."

But notwithstanding these "mountains of research," Kristof is then forced to acknowledge reality:

"Critics have noted that with programs like Head Start, there are early educational gains that then fade by second or third grade. That’s true, and that’s disappointing."

The results for Head Start have been "disappointing"? Oh really? Peculiar how Kristof fails to mention the cost of Head Start. As was reported at the beginning of this year by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/14/head-start-sad-and-costly-secret-what-washington-doesnt-want-to-know/):

"‘Twas the Friday before Christmas, and while most Americans were enjoying time with family and friends, the bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were stirring quietly about, preparing to release its long-overdue evaluation of the Head Start program.

Head Start is an $8 billion per year federal preschool program, designed to improve the kindergarten readiness of low-income children. Since its inception in 1965, taxpayers have spent more than $180 billion on the program.

But HHS’ latest Head Start Impact Study found taxpayers aren’t getting a good return on this 'investment.'  According to the congressionally-mandated report, Head Start has little to no impact on cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of its participants. In fact, on a few measures, access to the program actually produced negative effects."

Some $8 billion spent per year and more than $180 billion burned since 1965 to achieve little in the way of results? Shouldn't someone be asking what went wrong?

But why should anyone care if spending money in this manner makes people like Kristof feel happy? After all, salving Kristof's conscience is most important and not the welfare of these underprivileged children living in poverty.

Paul Krugman, "Rich Man’s Recovery": Tax the Rich to Fund Preschool?

Do you remember some nine months ago when the Department of Health and Human Services released its report concerning the impact of the Head Start program? As reported at the time by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/14/head-start-sad-and-costly-secret-what-washington-doesnt-want-to-know/):

"‘Twas the Friday before Christmas, and while most Americans were enjoying time with family and friends, the bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were stirring quietly about, preparing to release its long-overdue evaluation of the Head Start program.

Head Start is an $8 billion per year federal preschool program, designed to improve the kindergarten readiness of low-income children. Since its inception in 1965, taxpayers have spent more than $180 billion on the program.

But HHS’ latest Head Start Impact Study found taxpayers aren’t getting a good return on this 'investment.'  According to the congressionally-mandated report, Head Start has little to no impact on cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of its participants. In fact, on a few measures, access to the program actually produced negative effects."

Well, Paul Krugman apparently doesn't remember the report. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Rich Man’s Recovery" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/opinion/krugman-rich-mans-recovery.html?_r=0), which is primarily devoted to bemoaning the disparity between the status of the rich and the poor in the United States, Krugman concludes:

"Take, for example, the proposal by Bill de Blasio, who finished in first place in Tuesday’s Democratic primary and is the probable next mayor of New York, to provide universal prekindergarten education, paid for with a small tax surcharge on those with incomes over $500,000. The usual suspects are, of course, screaming and talking about their hurt feelings; they’ve been doing a lot of that these past few years, even while making out like bandits. But surely this is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing: Taxing the ever-richer rich, at least a bit, to expand opportunity for the children of the less fortunate.

Some pundits are already suggesting that Mr. de Blasio’s unexpected rise is the leading edge of a new economic populism that will shake up our whole political system. That seems premature, but I hope they’re right. For extreme inequality is still on the rise — and it’s poisoning our society."

Tax the very rich to fund universal prekindergarten education? This is going to differ in its end result from Head Start? Good luck.

And if the rich decide to pick up and leave New York for a friendlier locale, as is their wont, what happens to New York City's tax base?

Mind you, I don't dispute the growing gap between rich and poor in the US and the frightening shrinkage of America's middle class (see: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-12/business/35496368_1_income-inequality-median-household-income-middle-class).

I also don't care for the "super rich": There is a reason that they got to where they are, and it's usually not pretty.

But tax them for programs that are not going to help anyone?

They'll simply pack their bags and leave, unless you round them up and shoot them, like the "kulaks" murdered by Stalin, whose eradication led to the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 and the deaths of millions of more people.

Krugman tells us, "Inherited privilege is crowding out equality of opportunity; the power of money is crowding out effective democracy." I agree, and perhaps he would like to speak with Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and the Clintons in order to obtain some more effective ideas how best to address the issue.