Vox Publica

I just read the ballot information for Prop. 82, which would institute voluntary universal preschool for 4 year olds in California by taxing the very rich (those who make over $400K per person). My initial feeling was to vote for this measure - I remember signing the petition to put it on the ballot some months ago. And given that research shows that a good quality preschool can make a big difference in the life of underprivileged children, why wouldn't one support it? Specially, when it's not I but the richest Californians who will have to pay for it.

But after reading the details of the measure, I can't imagine voting for it. The measure is supposed to take in about 2 billion dollars a year. That money would be spent to build preschools, for teacher training and on teachers’ salaries (it's expected that preschool teachers would be compensated an average of $76K a year, or $70 an hour - and they say teachers are underpaid!). Currently, 62% of 4 year olds go to preschool or a preschool-like facility - it's expected that if the measure passes this number would rice to 80%, a meager 18% increase. It seems that spending 2 billion dollars a year to put 99,000 additional kids in preschool is excessive. This amounts to over $20K per kid - about $16K more than it would cost to send the child to an equivalent private preschool. I know the money is "free" in that it'd be the rich who will be taxed, but it seems to me that if we're going to tax them, the money could be put to better use for K-12 education. I don't understand why don't we just offer tuition assistance to low-income families who can't otherwise send their kids to preschool - it would cost 1/4 as much and it wouldn't mean creating another bureaucracy.

There are other problems with the proposition. Teachers would be that well paid because they'd be required to have college degrees and to eventually be credentialed on early childhood education. But there would only be 1 teacher and 1 aid per 20 students, or a 1 to 10 ratio. All the education in the world cannot make up for individual attention. Even at my daughter's cheap private preschool the ratio of teachers to students is 1 to 6 or 8.

Moreover, the assumption is that at most 10% of parents would keep their children in private preschools after the public preschools appear. It makes sense, why pay for tuition when you can send your kids to these schools for free? This mean that there will be a lot of unemployed preschool teachers. As most of them do not have the education and credentials required by the measure, they won't be able to be employed at the new preschools. My daughters have had some wonderful teachers at their school and I really do not want to see them - or women like them - be tossed out on the street without a job.

But a more troubling issue is that these schools will only provide 3 hours of preschool curriculum a day for 189 days a year. That's less than many private preschools provide now, so kids will actually end up spending less time in preschool than before.

Another problem is that under this measure the state would set the curriculum. There is a lot of controversy as to what's the best way to educate preschoolers. Montessori has many advocates as do play-based curriculum. I've looked for long-term comparative studies and I can't find anyone which says what is better. The state will arbitrarily choose one and parents will be stuck with it. Unfortunately, parents will probably also lose the option of sending their kids to a private school and paying for it, as the mass migration to public school will probably force many private preschools to close.

Finally, I just hate the idea of creating another huge bureaucracy. California K-12 schools are a miserable failure as it is. Why should we trust the state to do a better job with preschools?

On a last note, one of the arguments made in favor of prop 82 in the ballot guide really bothered me. This is the argument that we should fund universal preschool because it will get kids ready to learn how to read. But if learning how to read is the problem - then what we should do is actually invest money on Kindergarden, as that's when kids actually learn. Right now kindergarden classes here in San Leandro have 1 teacher for 20 students. Why not put some of this money on paying for 1 teacher aid for each kindergarden class? What's the point of giving kids good preschool education if we're going to shortchange them as soon as they get to grammar school?

I still support the idea of universal preschool, but I really think this is not the way to go. So I'm voting "no on 82"