Should Public Funding of Early Childhood Education Be A High Priority?

Yes, according to Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro. But what exactly is "early childhood education"?

The last question from the audience at the Holden Public Policy Forum at Webster University to DESE Commissioner Chris Nicastro was basically this: if you the commissioner had stable, and even increasing money flow (which is certainly not the case at the present time), what would she do with it?

Without hesitation, she answered: "early childhood education."

Now, why would that bother me over and above many other issues including Race to the Top funding?

Don't I think children should be educated, and certainly as early as possible?

I'm bothered because parents are responsible for "educating" their children by reading with them and doing other basic learning activities. It's called "parenting."

To Commissionor Nicastro credit, she seems to understand the notion that "school" should not be narrowly defined as only time in the "classroom," but rather, "school" is much more broader in scope and includes all educational activities. Homeschool parents understand this concept well.

To me, it seems, that will all the talk about the need for "educational reform," what we need is a revolution in returning to the basics (no I'm not very creative in my proposed solutions), and not fads and continually defining and redefining "standards."

Learning how to read, write, and add as well as many other tasks are not group activities. Why are we trying to make them group activities? Maybe because our society has tried to make them group activities, some children fall behind?

More over, the pre-kindergarten push is based on false assumptions that beg the question: is there research showing that a structured (or possibility out-of-control) classroom is better "early child education" than parents can provide their children at home or no classroom instruction at all?

Ok, now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Ruth, it's great that well-to-do parents might have the intuition and resources to "educate" their children at home before Kindergarten, but what about the 'poor'?"

Let's look at how well Head Start, a program focused on early childhood education for lower-income children, has preformed. Head Start serves approximately 900,000 low-income children at a cost of $9 billion per year. An experimental evaluation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that

"Head Start has had little to no effect on cognitive, socio-emotional, health, and parenting outcomes of participating children. For the four-year-old cohort, access to Head Start had a beneficial effect on only two outcomes (1.8 percent) out of 112 measures. For the three-year-old cohort, access to Head Start had one harmful impact (0.9 percent) and five (4.5 percent) beneficial impacts out of 112 measures," according to by David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D. and Dan Lips.

To sound like a progressive, in part, the solution is more discussion on what is "early childhood education." And to sound like a conservative, I don't think the main problem is not enough publicly funded structured (or not so structured) classroom snacks, naps, and diversity training.

Missouri U.S. Senate Candidate Forum: Lightning Round

After reviewing answers, go vote at MODecides.com for who you think would be the best candidate to represent Missourians in the U.S. Senate.

. Davis Conway Sen. Chuck Purgason Deborah Solomon Hector Maldonado Kristi Nichols James H. Schmidt . Would you vote to repeal the 17th amendment? yes yes need to research/not sure yes yes yes . Would you vote to audit the Federal Reserve System? yes yes yes yes yes yes . Would you support legislation to require all bills to include provisions only germane to the bill? Yes Yes need to research/not sure no no yes . Do you believe that the best way to protect Americans from terrorism is by the provisions within the USA Patriot Act including surveillance of US citizens and suspension of due process? no no yes yes yes no . Would you vote to repeal the USA Patriot Act? yes yes no no no yes . Would you vote to repeal the 16th amendment? no yes need to research/not sure need to research/not sure need to research/not sure yes . Do you think that non-citizens should be provided with entitlements like Social Security and Medicare? no no no no no no . Would you be in favor of withdrawing from the United Nations? yes yes yes yes yes yes . Do you support 10th Amendment legislation that resists the federal government usurping the constitutional rights of the states? yes yes need to research/not sure yes yes yes

Wondering What's Up in Jefferson City?

I just got a great email from Sen. Chuck Purgason on what's been going on in our state capital:

This week your Missouri Senate pushed back again working for the passage of “The Health Care Freedom Act” (SJR 25). This important legislation would allow the people of Missouri an opportunity to vote for a constitutional amendment that would block mandatory participation in Washington’s total government-run health care proposal.

This measure, if passed by the voters, would not allow fines or penalties to be levied against employers and individuals who opt out of government-run care and pay for their own health care. I believe we should protect our individual freedom and not let government bureaucrats gain more control over our lives. I think it is very unfortunate that the states are put into this position. I wish our congress would have addressed some of these issues before it got to the point that it is today, but those opportunities have passed us by.

The Senate Appropriations Committee continued its work this week with discussions on spending priorities and spending cuts to the Governor’s recommendations for the state’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget which begins July 1. It is no secret that deeper spending cuts will have to be made for next year’s budget, but thus far we are just trimming around the edges and rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

At some point in the budget process, the politicians will have to accept the facts, make the spending cuts and balance the budget. However, I expect it may take a little longer than the regular legislative session for the Governor and the General Assembly to come to an agreement on difficult budget cuts. It looks like I may need to contact my landlord and extend the lease on my apartment.

I cannot stress to you enough the severity of the budget this year and even greater problems next year. With that in mind, the Senate this week broke from tradition on floor debate and split up into groups of four to study reforms to our state government. The group to which I was assigned dealt with tax credits and economic development. The department put forth a plan to rearrange our 61 tax credit programs into six more easily managed tax credit departments.

. . . .The only jobs we [government] create are ones that produce more red tape and bureaucracies. The private sector is the area that creates jobs --- our small business owners across the state. 92% of the jobs created in this state are created by small businesses, but we spend millions of dollars per year dangling out tax credits and incentives to lure 8% of the businesses to the state at the expense of the ones that are already here.

. . . . Given the current job situation, apparently what we have been doing in economic development is not proving to be successful. Sometimes simple answers for complex problems are better because we as a government have allowed simple problems to become so complex.

As always, I appreciate hearing your comments, opinions and concerns. I can be reached in Jefferson City at (573)751-1882, e-mail to chuck.purgason@senate.mo.gov or write to me at 201 West Capitol Avenue, Room 420, Jefferson City, MO 65101.

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