Things Look This Way to Me

 Editorial by J.B. McKinley

Public-funded Pre-school

Dad, I’m beginning to understand you. It’s true that past years may be water under the dam and “today is today” as my daughter might spout at me while stomping off, but age does give one a different perspective. And here’s an example.

I’m told that last year’s controversial legislative expansion of  public funded pre-school initiatives will probably be back on the Vermont Department of Education’s agenda again this year. Well, I’ve got some thoughts on the issue, too, now that it is being revisited. Perspective gives me an angle not everyone may bring to the table.

I well remember the days before Sputnik, heard about most of the run-up to the Cold War, and have virtually lived my life during the Cold War. The former USSR often came up in conversations and  for decades was  the subject of a great deal of print in the U.S.   Certainly much more  than Russian affairs get now, when there appears to be less of a threat.  As a result of this general knowledge, I can’t count the number of times people spoke at length, spiritedly and unfavorably on the Soviet systems of marriage, divorce, and education. Parents did not want that system emulated by the U.S. Parents emphatically did not want to turn the rearing of their children over to the government. Parents did not want their children exposed to possibilities ranging from the  even earlier (but still within cultural memory) government “creches” for infants sponsored for the chosen of Nazi Germany, nor did they want the clubs or junior Communist Party organizations that were designed, and did, shape the thought of Soviet youth.

Do parents really wish to relinquish control of their children’s early childhood years to state sponsored, by definition politically correct, public school? Why the change in less than two decades? Yes, many families find it a necessity to bring home two incomes, with both parents working, but are we really willing to give up the early years with our children for a job? If we want to absolve ourselves of parenthood even before our children are 5, isn’t there something wrong here?

Getting back to exactly what is being proposed, do the workers of Vermont  really want pre-school education or do they want simple day care for pre-school aged children? Or do they really want a mandated living wage for one parent, so someone can stay home and be a nurturer? Once again, the public school system, this time apparently by its own design, wants to expand its role beyond education. Are there valid reasons for the expansion of the age group served by public education? Is the money better spent for higher education, later in a student’s life? Should we pay to expand the age group in the other direction? What about the need for re-training adults to make better livings at new careers? Is all this public pre-school talk a response to demographics forecasts of fewer school age students coming along to fill our newly enlarged school systems?

Before we fund public pre-schools even further, let’s answer the right questions and consider the past, too.