Opinion: Time to support early childhood education
By Patrick Stelmach
While stumping across the nation recently in favor of early childhood education, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discovered something interesting: More Republican governors than Democrats have increased funding at the state level for preschool programs.
Actually, this should come as no surprise. Strong early education programs enjoy majority support from Americans of every ideological bent – Democrats, Republicans, even self-identified Tea Party members support it. Why? Because providing a better, stronger education for our children is not a partisan issue.
Think about it. There is no Republican way to teach children how to read and there is no Democrat way to teach kids how to add and subtract. There is no Blue State way to teach geography and no Red State way to teach Social Studies. Education in America has always been a bipartisan effort.
But here’s the problem. Democrat and Republican governors who want to provide expanded access to good childhood education programs face competition and constraints. Human service needs caused by the worst recession in more than a generation remain dire. Health care costs, exacerbated by our aging population, aren’t going away. And good, quality pre-K programs – the kind every American would want their kids enrolled in – do not come cheap.
All of this spells the need for a new state-federal partnership. And that’s the idea behind legislation filed this month in Congress. The Strong Start for America’s Children Act, sponsored in the House by Reps. George Miller, D-Martinez, and Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., and in the Senate by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, would help states and local school districts improve and expand high-quality, full-day preschool programs for 4-year-olds with the goal of making sure they are ready to learn.
The need for this is now – and any cop, prosecutor, business leader, teacher or economist can tell you why. When children participate in high-quality early learning programs in the first five years of life, they do better in school, get higher-paying jobs, rely less on social programs and contribute more to the economy. Such programs improve health; reduce the need for special education, educational remediation and welfare; reduce high school dropout, juvenile justice and incarceration rates; and increase home ownership, employment and economic productivity.
It’s not just about helping children, although for many of us, that would be a desirable outcome by itself. It’s also about making our economy stronger and our workers more capable of competing in a global economy. Think of the prosperity that will flow from a strong education system if the U.S. 10 years from now found herself with the world’s best and strongest early childhood education programs.
So what can we do? A good place to start is to encourage Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, to climb on board and support the new legislation. It’s an opportunity for Rep. McClintock to not only reflect the will of his constituents, but also bypass the partisan gridlock in Washington and do what’s right for his district and for our children.
Patrick Stelmach is state organizer for California Fair Share. California Fair Share stands for an America where everyone gets their fair share, does their fair share, and pays their fair share; and where everyone plays by the same rules. Find out more online.
Right off. Let’s continue making teacher’s unions even richer and more powerful while fooling ourselves into thinking we are doing something for the kids. Patrick is nothing more than a Karl Marx surrogate who lives in a fascist dream world of national socialism.
Look around as America diminishes itself and tell me you want more of it.
Your utopian fantasy is being brought to you by the devil himself.
The earlier you hand your children into the control of the State, the better they like it. Strong familial attachments are so bourgeoisie.
yea lets prevent our children from getting a head start on their education-thats brilliant-lets make sure we fall farther and farther behind the rest of the world in STEM educ. and critical thinking skills-keep kids dumbed down enough so they can believe the religious fanatics and hate radio fearmongers-keep them stupid and delusional enough to believe that gaining knowledge is the work the ‘devil himself’-yea thats the ticket
An uneducated, unhealthy, non-voting populace.
The GOP’s wet dream!
There was no Federal Dept of Education until Jimmy Carter’s administration. Is our quality of education better now than it was in 1976? How did generations of people manage to become educated before there was Federal intervention and Head Start? It must have been a miracle.
No, I think that it was because the tax burden on the average person was SO much lower back in the day that you didn’t have to have everybody in the family taking multiple jobs just to make ends meet, and mothers and fathers had the opportunity to engage with their children, read to them, talk to them, shower them with time and attention. Now they’re plopped in front of the tv or the video game and left to learn from their ‘peers’, who also are woefully undereducated.
Early dumping into the system will not improve things. It’ll only allow the collectivists even earlier access to impressionable minds.
Read some Marxist writings if you think I’m over reacting. This is exactly the kind of stuff they espoused.
So, education=socialism? No.
California’s education system is broken. Vouchers were and still are the answer.
Anyone that thinks the USA education system is influenced by, let alone controlled by anything to do with conservatives is a fool or a liar.
There are a lot of both on these pages.
Liberals destroyed the California system, been there, watched that.
So high taxes are the reason people needed multiple jobs.
I see…. And then something about socialism.
Wow there are some dumb people commenting today.
What website and email lists are you on?
Dawg do you still read the one that told you about the Bassoons?
I will no longer be engaging with the fish. It’s too much like wrestling with pigs.
Tax rates on both regular income and capital gains were much higher in 1976, so your argument has no basis in fact as usual… then along came Reagan and that was the start of middle class families needing 2 incomes to make it. Save the revisionist history for the willfully ignorant and let’s do the right thing by supporting education, at all levels.
BB, you are talking about income tax rates only. If you are so unaware of all the other hidden taxes most of us now pay, it’s probably because of the fine public school education you received.
You’re talking about income tax and capital gains (which didn’t apply to most Americans back then). You’re forgetting all these:
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)
Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
None of those existed 100 years ago. Many of them didn’t exist 50 years ago.
If you thought all the tax you paid was income tax, you SERIOUSLY need a better education. But you surely won’t get it from the DOE.
If this is truly a non-partisan issue, perhaps when everyone sits at the table to discuss it, perhaps it will put some WHITE between the REDS and the BLUES. Perhaps it will open the pipeline for rational negotiation of other problems troubling our country today.
BB, that’s income tax and capital gains (which most Americans didn’t pay back then anyway).
What about these?
Medicare tax, self-employment tax, alternative minimum tax, natural gas and electricity taxes, cable tax, landline phone tax, cell phone tax, state & federal gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes, import taxes (tariffs), sales taxes, building permit taxes, property taxes, and NOW all the new hidden taxes that come with obamacare.
You really need to become better educated about how much money government is costing you. But you won’t learn it from the government schools.
All the taxes you mentioned, except for maybe AMT, cell phone and medicare(which is insurance you pay into) have always existed. There are 0 hidden taxes in the ACA, that’s another jackhole talking point and gov’t costs under Pres. Obama are increasing at a much slower rate, the deficit is decreasing rapidly and spending on stupid wars for oil started by the previous administration are finally ending and on the books. Just think how much $$$ we’d have for education if wasn’t for those war crimes.
You do not have facts. You have the info you want to read, from dubious at best sources, that make you feel better about your “Me the People” personal political philosophy. You really need to know that the teabagger/randoid movement will be shunned and disgraced in upcoming elections. Good riddance.
From the comments, it is fairly obvious that education should be our top priority. Unfortunatley, there is more misinformation than information in today’s discussions. Facts are bandied about like tennis balls. Sad.
No hidden taxes in the ACA? You believe that? What about the medical device tax? And the new real estate tax? Please!
The other taxes I mentioned, while some of them did exist 50 years ago, they are MUCH higher now than they were then.
You keep throwing out Bush and Reagan as if you’re scoring hits. You’re not. They were statists too. How were you going to tap dance around it if your savior-president had been allowed to go to war with Syria?? So far his record of reducing overseas military aggression isn’t looking so good either. But we digress.
Obviously I am not going to convince you. You actually believe the lies your sources are putting out. But I encourage others to investigate for themselves how much more government costs them now than it did a hundred years ago, and how much better off we’d all be with a LOT less of it.
We were much better off 100 years ago? What part of that era makes you want to regress to that age of slavery and aristocracy? Since I’m in the midst of preparing a football feast for friends and family and making you look foolish is tiresome, I will have the last word on this: good riddance teabaggers, you’re political and social attempts at regression are rejected by people of good will. End of message.
Wow. Slavery was ended in the United States in 1865. That’s more like 150 years ago. And aristocracy hasn’t been part of America since the 1700’s. But emotion rather than fact is the premise of most of your argument anyway.
No need to regress. I like technology too much. Your twisting of words is annoying. I merely want the freedom from so much governmental theft and oversight that we had in earlier days.
Too bad there isnt a tax for ignorance. Dogface would then have a leg, or maybe 4, to stand on
?????????????????????
Was there a point you wanted to make in reference to the discussion gf, or did you just pop in to spew the random insult? Ignorant of what, exactly?
So tiresome.
If I have to explain it than my
Point is already made