With congressional education leaders looking to rewrite K-12 education policies, liberals continue to push Congress to expand funding for ineffective federal preschool programs.
After one House Republican bill passed the Committee on Education and the Workforce, President Obama threatened to veto the bill. “[The bill] fails to make critical investments for this Nation’s students, including high-quality preschool for America’s children,” part of the veto threat read. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made the same point in February, writing, “A reauthorized law must expand access to quality preschool.”
But there are several reasons preschool policy should not be added to K-12 education reform.
First of all, federally-funded preschool is ineffective. A 2012 study by Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services found initial benefits for participants in the Head Start program, which is largely made up of children in families with incomes under the poverty line. But initial gains faded out and were gone by the third grade, let alone high school graduation. Other studies have shown gains may even fade by first grade and that the program is vulnerable to fraud. It is not unreasonable to expect preschool policies to be effective by the time supposed beneficiaries leave the K-12 system.
Second, preschool is literally not in the name of the bill. The original bill Congress is looking to reauthorize is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, first passed in 1965. K-12 education policy is already a large enough beast on its own, with Congress debating federalism, teacher effectiveness, funding levels, funding portability and plenty of other education issues. The Head Start program is administered under the Department of Health and Human Services, not the Department of Education. Preschool policy simply doesn’t belong in the jurisdiction of federal reform of K-12 education.
Third, adding preschool to federal K-12 policy only makes it more difficult to reform education. Lately, it seems that most legislative changes occur in large, comprehensive bills. Congress didn’t just change one part of healthcare, it passed comprehensive changes under Obamacare. Likewise, the House Republican education bill wouldn’t just alter one section of K-12 education policy, it would be largely comprehensive. Regardless of whether large, comprehensive reforms are better than a series of small ones, larger pieces of legislation are harder to pass. The larger a bill is, the more likely a member of Congress will find a poison pill giving them reason to vote against.
Congress has enough issues under consideration on K-12 education policy without trying to add preschool policies as more fuel to the fire. The Obama administration is being unreasonable with its demand to include preschool policies in a K-12 education bill. If Obama wants to make sure reform doesn’t pass while still looking engaged in the legislative process, demanding federal preschool policy to be in a strictly K-12 education bill will do the trick.
