Blueprint for a Nanny State

April 2001 No. 01-3

OCPA Policy Paper A Report from the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs

Blueprint for a Nanny State

by Darcy Ann Olsen

The Governor s Task Force on Early Childhood Education has produced nothing less than a blueprint for a state-run childcare, health care, and education system for Oklahoma children from the womb through age five. And though all reasonable people are certainly for the children, concerned parents and taxpayers should ask themselves: Do we really want to empower bureaucrats to run expensive programs of questionable benefit that parents neither want nor need?

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OCPA encourages rigorous critique of its research. If the accuracy of any material fact or reference to an independent source is questioned and brought to OCPA s attention with supporting evidence, OCPA will respond in writing. If an error exists, it will be noted in an errata sheet that will accompany all subsequent distribution of the publication, which constitutes the complete and final remedy under this guarantee.

Governor Frank Keating last year established a Task Force on Early Childhood Education to assess the needs for early childhood education ... and develop a proposal and implementation recommendation to the Governor. 1 Within the year, the Task Force issued its report. And this year, Keating s proposed budget contains $500,000 in seed money to begin funding the Task Force s initiatives. What will the implementation of this proposal mean for Oklahoma s families?

a second for assuring the engagement of the public in the care and education of children under the age of five, a third for assuring quality child care for all children under the age of five, a fourth for promoting and assuring all children under the age of five have access to quality prekindergarten programs, and a fifth with ultimate responsibility for the health care of young children.

Hundreds of tasks will then fall to the various agencies, including: 4 Focus additional funding and resources on children from birth to 3 years of age ... the expansion of First Start slots that provide fullday, full-year child care for children birth to age three.

4 Expand early childhood programs to all districts to serve all four-year-olds ...

4 Provide birth control services for women at risk of substance abuse ...

4 Increase child access to health care by putting more health care services in schools and child care programs ...

4 Fund preventive mental health services for high-risk families ...

4 Improve funding for early child care initiatives ...

4 Increase reimbursement of family child care homes ...

4 Develop a state-operated child care center for state employees and low-income families ...

Despite its assertions to the contrary, the Task Force has produced nothing less than a blueprint for a state-run childcare, health care, and education system for children from before birth through age five.

The Task Force Report

On the surface, the Task Force s vision is hardly disagreeable. The report simply states that All Oklahoma children will be healthy, eager to learn, and ready to succeed by the time they enter school. 2 Few people want anything less for children. And the authors put their agenda in reasonable terms, promising to coordinate existing programs, to work with the private sector, and to enable families to make their own informed and responsible choices. 3 Yet such sensible rhetoric does not square with the Task Force s actual recommendations. A thorough examination of the report reveals that, if implemented, the plan will set up the skeleton for a governmental body empowered to oversee every imaginable aspect of child rearing, from pregnancy planning to parenting classes to preschool.

Consider just a few of the recommendations: 4 Promote the healthy timing and spacing of births ...

4 Assure that each new family having a child in an Oklahoma hospital or birthing center receives a personal contact within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of the birth of their child, to receive information about child development ...

4 Provide new Oklahoma mothers information about the benefits of breast feeding ... for the purpose of increasing the proportion of Oklahoma mothers who breast feed their infants.

Given such recommendations, the Task Force s claim that it does not take a government-knowsbest approach to child rearing appears to be little more than cover for a proposal Oklahomans would assuredly reject.4 And those examples are just three of more than 100 directives contained in the report.

As a first step, the Task Force recommends establishing several new state-level agencies, including one to set standards, evaluate progress and ensure accountability in early childhood services,

Current Programs

The report repeats many of the claims and themes heard during the national child care debate under the Clinton administration, most of which were wholly unsubstantiated or exaggerated for political purposes.5 One of those claims is that taxpayers are under investing in young children.6 Setting aside for the moment the question of whether or to what degree government should be setting childhood policies, Oklahoma s involvement with young children already exceeds that of many other states. For instance, Oklahoma is one of only three states that runs preschools for all four-yearolds regardless of family circumstance. In addition, Oklahoma runs more than 30 programs for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers including First Start,

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earnings, increased taxes paid, decreased welfare Even Start, Early Head Start, Head Start, Theradependence, a better prepared workforce, and peutic Nurseries, Oklahoma Parents as Teachers, ABC Clinic, SoonerStart, Children First, Healthy more. An effective, well planned, early childhood Families, Child Guidance, Early Childhood Develcare and education system will, over time, opment and Parent Education Program, Success by strengthen families, assure the success of Okla6, Reaching for the STARS, TEACH, and the Child homa children and save public and private reCare Resource and Referral System. sources. 11 What s the price tag for this elaborate system of Those promises hearken back to 1965 when intervention? In 2000, Oklahoma spent President Lyndon Johnson enacted the federal $472,905,000 in federal and state dollars for early Head Start program, promising to end cyclical childhood education for children under the age of poverty. Five- and six-year-old children are inherifive.7 That s an estimated $2,033 per child, or tors of poverty s curse and not its creators, said 8 $9,036 per child in poverty. Although the Task Johnson. Unless we act these children will pass it Force doesn t say what the right level of spending on to the next generation. ... This program this year is, Oklahoma is already paying enough to send means that 30 million man-years the combined every infant, toddler, lifespan of these youngand preschooler in sters will be spent State and federal spending on poverty to a full-time productively and development and early education for rewardingly, rather than early education facility, Oklahoma children under age 5 or to send every infant, wasted in tax-supported institutions or in weltoddler, and Oklahoma preschooler to school fare-supported lethSpending 9 part-time. argy. 12 $133,935,000 Current spending The theory went then 28% looks even more excesas it does today, that sive when one considputting kids on the ers that most infants, right track will get toddlers, and them to the right 72% preschoolers in Okladestination. It sounds Federal homa are primarily so reasonable. Yet Spending cared for by a parent at experience with hun$338,971,000 home. Forty percent of dreds of early intervenOklahoma children tion programs shows Source: Governor s Task Force Report, footnote 66, p. 47 and Attachment no. 3, Oklahoma s Early Childhood Education Investment, 2000. under age six have there is little, if any, link mothers who stay home between early childand 38 percent have a mother who works part-time; hood education and factors such as future school only 22 percent have a mother who works fullperformance.13 10 time. The programs proposed by the Task Force, such as state-run preschool and day care, discrimiPerry Preschool nate against the majority of families who care for Supporters of state intervention, like the church their children at home. In fact the data show the leaders who once dismissed the Copernican theory Task Force agenda would have the perverse effect of the solar system, prefer their convictions to the of making the vast majority of families subsidize evidence. They invariably point to the Perry Prethe child care and early education choices of the school Project to show that preschool interventions few. confer lasting benefits on kids. That 1960s project tracked 123 children deemed at risk through age Task-Force Claims 27. Half of them attended preschool as three- and The Task Force claims that state-run early care four-year olds, the other half didn t. According to and education will pay off in the long run for all the research team, Program participation had citizens. Dramatic returns will also result from positive effects on adult crime, earnings, wealth, decreased child abuse and neglect, higher school welfare dependence, and commitment to marachievement and graduation rates, higher adult riage. 14 The Perry research team seized on these

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results to produce the oft-cited fact that preschool Department of Health and Human Services. Reprovides taxpayers a return on investment of $7.16 searchers found that by the time children enter the 15 on the dollar. This is the same return-on-investsecond grade, any initial cognitive, social, and ment figure promised by the Task Force. emotional gains by Head Start children have But the Task Force neglected to mention the rest vanished. In the long run, cognitive and of the story. It wasn t long before independent peer socioemotional test scores of former Head Start reviewers uncovered sizable students do not remain sampling and methodologisuperior to those of disadcal flaws in the Perry study. vantaged children who did For example, preschool not attend Head Start. In participants, but not the other words, by second control group, had to have a grade, the achievement test parent at home during the scores, IQs, achievementday, which might have motivation scores, selfinflated the Perry findings. esteem, and social behavMore important, after almost ior scores of Head Start 40 years, the Perry results students are indistinguishhave never been repliable from those of their 16 cated. Even if Perry were demographically compareplicable, the project rable peers. The net gain to worked only with severely children and taxpayers is disadvantaged zero.18 preschoolers, rendering the But the establishment findings irrelevant for the has clung to the study s majority of American chilremnants: although gains dren who live in two-parent, were not maintained over The plan will set up the middle-class families. time, some children had skeleton for a governmental Undeterred, both the Caliexperienced short-term body empowered to fornia Department of Educaboosts. This, they argued, oversee every imaginable tion and the New York State was Head Start s job. If Board of Regents, and now schools couldn t maintain aspect of child rearing, from Oklahoma s Task Force, gains, that reflected a pregnancy planning to have relied on the spurious problem with the schools, parenting classes to cost-benefit analysis to not the program. That preschool. Oklahoma would garner support for their certainly sounds reasonstate-run preschool initiaable. But, it s also reasonevolve from a state where tives.17 able for people to question parents know best to one Head Start s utility. If where politicians know best students test the same with Head Start Proponents also shrug off or without Head Start after a direction rejected by a year or two, what s the inconvenient findings from most Oklahomans and one point of sending them Head Start. Like many of the unsuited to free people in a through the program in the initiatives in the Task Force free society. first place? report, Head Start is largely public school based, serves More recently, the General Accounting Office three- and four-year-olds, reported that after spending more than $44 billion and espouses the mission of school readiness. As over 35 years, there is still no evidence that Head the nation s largest and longest-running preschool Start benefits children in any lasting manner.19 This program, Head Start is filled with lessons for educators. is consistent with research on early intervention The most comprehensive synthesis of Head Start that shows programs can result in short-term gains impact studies to date was published in 1985 by the to children but confer no lasting benefits.20

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Georgia

Reports also show that GKAP scores are essentially the same as they were before the adoption of If the actual proves the possible, policymakers public preschool. Georgia State School Superintenshould consider the nation s most recent experience with state-run preschool. In 1995 Georgia became dent Linda Schrenko expressed the state s disapthe first state to fund statewide preschool for all pointment, saying, The only message you can get four-year-olds regardless of family income. The from it is that our kindergarten non-ready rate is the program is funded by the same, regardless of what state lottery, and preschool we do. 22 providers include public It is important to note that Oklahoma s schools, Head Start agenthe vast majority of students involvement with young cies, non-profit childcare in Georgia and across the agencies, for-profit U.S., or better than 90 children already childcare agencies, percent of students, are exceeds that of many churches and private ready to learn according other states. At $473 schools. Programs operate a to the GKAP and similar minimum of five days a assessment tests taken at million annually, week and for a minimum of kindergarten entry. Such Oklahoma is already six and one-half hours per high scores certainly cast day. doubt on claims that most paying enough to send Funded by Georgia s children are not ready to every infant, toddler, Office of School Readiness, learn when they enter researchers at Georgia school. and preschooler to State University recently school part-time. completed the second year Abecedarian of a longitudinal study of The Task Force s recomchildren in the universal mendations also draw preschool program. Using heavily on the results of the the Georgia Kindergarten Abecedarian project.

Assessment Program, Launched in 1972, researchers assessed the Abecedarian is the only progress of participating early intervention program children during their kinderthat appears to have had a lasting, meaningful impact garten year in five domains: on children. Most children communicative capability, entered that lavish experilogical-mathematical capament at five months of age. bility, physical capability, Year round, the children personal capability and spent eight hours a day, five social capability. Findings days a week in an educarevealed that 94 percent of tional daycare center. They the students were reported also received free medical as capable in the first and care, dietary supplements, second areas, followed by social service support, and 97 percent in the third, 93 extra support in school from percent in the fourth and 94 kindergarten through eighth percent in the fifth. Student grade. What the scores for this sample were Abecedarian children really had was home away then compared to all students across the state, and from home. researchers concluded, The study sample does not The project s former administrative director, Ron differ from the entire kindergarten population in Haskins, points out that Abecedarian was conGKAP capability scores. 21 In other words, preducted under ideal circumstances with skilled school conferred no apparent gains on participatresearchers, capable staffs with lots of training, ing children.

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dence that the promise of early education is an empty one. But a few have been honest enough to consider the clear implications of decades of experience and research. Preschool enthusiasts would be wise to consider the views of one of the most outstanding scholars in the child development field: Edward Zigler, cofounder of Head Start and director of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University. Zigler says candidly, We simply cannot inoculate children in one year against the ravages of a life of deprivation. As far back as 1987, when universal preschool was on the political scene, he noted, This is not the first time universal preschool education has been proposed. ...

Then, as now, the arguments in favor of preschool education were that it would reduce school failure, lower dropout rates, increase test scores, and produce a generation of more competent high school graduates. ...

Preschool education will achieve none of these results. 27 What Zigler recognized is that a child s academic performance and personal growth turn on a lot more than the preschool years.

Factors such as genetics, family, neighborhood, and life experiences from birth onward easily outweigh the influence of preschool.

Preschools may teach children how to count, follow directions, and get along; Zigler himself favors preschool as a means to achieve school readiness. But preschool alone confers no lasting advantages. To put all children on an equal footing would require genetic engineering, surrogate parents, and for many kids, as

and ample budgets. It seems unwise to claim that the benefits produced by such exemplary programs would necessarily be produced by ordinary preschool programs conducted in communities across the United States, he concludes.23 Haskins is correct it is highly unlikely that regular early intervention programs could ever replicate those results.

In 40 years, no other public or private program has.

Moreover, the Abecedarian project, like Head Start and Perry Preschool, worked with severely at-risk children.

There is no evidence whatsoever that such preschool programs benefit the average child any more than ordinary parenting. In fact, the research teams talked, played and read to the children inexpensive activities routinely carried out by millions of parents every day. Moreover, there is a large body of evidence, none of which was weighed or considered by the Task Force, that suggests that early education and day care outside the home may have negative consequences for most children.24

Like the church leaders who once dismissed the Copernican theory of the solar system, supporters of state intervention prefer their convictions to the evidence.

What Have We Learned?

In 1965, only 10 percent of the nation s four-year-olds attended preschool. Today, 60 percent do.25 Despite this trend, student achievement was higher in 1965 than it is today.26 While the relationship between inputs and outcomes is more complicated than this linear analysis suggests, it is nonetheless reasonable to expect increased preschool enrollment to have had some noticeable impact on student achievement, if that were possible.

As a group, many professional educators have resisted coming to terms with the mounting evi-

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Abecedarian demonstrates, homes away from home.

preschoolers.

While American children start school better prepared than ever, the overall performance of older students continues to decline. Tests show that by eighth grade, Americans start sliding down the international curve. By 12th grade, they hit bottom.

The reasons for that decline are debatable. But one thing is certain; it s time to stop blaming preschoolers for the nation s education woes.

Good News

Underlying moves for more government intervention is the mistaken idea that today s children aren t prepared for kindergarten.

Contrary to the Task Force s assertions, however, the evidence is strong that the vast majority of American children start school ready to learn. According to the Department of Education report America s Kindergartners, U.S. kindergartners have a strong start.

Upon kindergarten entry, 94 percent of children are proficient at recognizing numbers, shapes and counting to ten; 92 percent are eager to learn; and, all but three percent are in good health. 28 Such measures indicate that America s flexible approach to early education is working.

America s young children also perform well when measured against their European counterparts.

Consider France, England, Spain and Belgium where more than 90 percent of four-year-olds attend public preschool.29 International tests show that by age nine, when the benefits of preschool should be apparent, American children regularly outscore their European peers on tests of reading, math, and science.30 It s only in the later years, when most American children have been attending public schools of questionable quality, that students abroad pull ahead.31 If there is truly a crisis in our public schools, as there appears to be, it makes no sense to expand the same failing framework to educate infants, toddlers, and

There is a large body of evidence, none of which was weighed or considered by the Task Force, that suggests that early education and day care outside the home may have negative consequences for most children.

The Wrong Direction

The desirability of staterun childcare and education programs should not hinge only on whether such programs work, or even apparent need. More basic is the moral question of whether the government should entrench itself still further in the care and schooling of children.

On this question, the Task Force is swimming against a powerful tide.

Witness the increasing demand across the states and at the federal level for alternatives to government-run schools, and the growth of multi-milliondollar private scholarship funds, homeschooling, voucher initiatives and tax credits. In just ten years, 36 states have passed laws allowing charter schools, three have implemented voucher programs, and four have created tax credits for educational expenses. Parents are working to loosen the government s grip on education, even as politicians are seeking to extend that hold to infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

It is not coincidental that parents desire for greater choice in education coincides with a widespread belief that educating and caring for chil-

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dren is a parent s responsibility, not government s.

According to Necessary Compromises, a report from the non-partisan public opinion research center Public Agenda, more than seven in 10 parents with children age five or under say they should be responsible for paying the costs of caring for their own young children; only 24 percent say all taxpayers should help pay the costs. Even a majority of low-income parents those earning no more than $25,000 a year believe bearing the cost is essentially their responsibility and not society s (62 versus 33 percent). The same survey reports that although seven in 10 self-proclaimed children s advocates say that the best direction for government policy to take when it comes to child care is to move toward a universal, national child care system, only 27 percent of parents of young children share that vision.32

But tax cuts are not enough. Legislators must reform the K-12 system.

While American children get off to a running start, school performance declines as they move up through grade school and on to high school. American fourth-graders outperform nearly all of their European peers on tests of reading, math, and science.

By eighth grade, U.S. students start sliding down the international curve. By twelfth grade, they hit bottom. Today s students also perform poorly relative to their parents generation; domestic test scores have been slipping for three decades. At least part of that decline can be traced to the nation s severely troubled public schools.

Under the current system, the state assigns children to schools, bureaucrats pick textbooks, arbitrary standards drive curriculum and the establishment passes the buck when students fail. The so-called ready-to-learn crisis is just the latest excuse in a decades-old blame game.

Since 1970, per pupil expenditures have doubled, class sizes have shrunk, and teacher s salaries have grown. Despite those infusions of spending and the adoption of countless reforms, student achievement has stagnated and declined.

Oklahoma s legislators can change that. They should start by adopting what are known as school choice measures. School choice takes the politics out of schooling by putting parents in charge. The classic school choice plan would return to parents a part of their state taxes, or a portion of current state expenditures, so they could pay tuition at any school of their choice.35 School choice means

If there is truly a crisis in our public schools, as there appears to be, it makes no sense to expand the same failing framework to educate infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

The Right Response

Oklahoma s legislators could do more for children by doing less. For instance, a simple income tax cut would help most parents have more money to spend for their priorities. As Governor Keating put it in his State of the State address, We understand that the money we spend here is not our money. It belongs to the men and women of our state who earn it day-by-day, hour-by-hour, for the purpose of putting their children through school, permitting themselves to have a safe and secure retirement. 33 Estimates show that an income tax cut would save even Oklahoma s poorest families hundreds of dollars per year.34 Families could use that money to better meet their own needs.

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educators must deliver the goods now not in five, 10 or 20 years or watch their students leave for better schools, taking their money with them.

Defenders of the status quo argue that expectations for schools are too high schools can t be expected to compensate for poor parenting, and some students will always fail. Although there is undoubtedly some truth to those sentiments, there is substantial evidence that even children at high risk of failure can be helped. For example, since 1990 nearly 100 public and private scholarship programs have given children from low-income families the chance to trade in their government education for a private one, resulting in significant, measurable gains on achievement tests. Those gains appear in both privately sponsored programs like the Washington Scholarship Fund in Washington, D.C., and publicly sponsored programs like those in Milwaukee and Cleveland. More than a dozen studies by independent research organizations have shown that choice programs consistently confer positive benefits on students: parental involvement increases, student achievement improves, and both public and private schools work to attract students by improving services.36 Critics say choice proposals are anti-public education. But school choice is not about favoring public or private education. It is about favoring children by letting parents decide what works for their kids. When parents control education spending, schools that can t teach will be shut down; schools where children excel and look forward to learning will flourish. Perhaps because parents are concerned only with their children s well-being and are unburdened by political considerations, they have the good sense not to throw money at programs and schools that don t work.

Every legislator should work to return education dollars, education choice, and education power back to parents. Through school choice, legislators can improve educational opportunities for all children.

The Bottom Line

The Task Force would like to frame the debate over this proposal by asking whether you re for or against children, but that s an absurd question.

We re all for children. The real question is: Why on earth would anyone seriously propose helping children by taking millions of dollars from families so bureaucrats can run programs that few parents want or need?

There s nothing wrong with arming new mothers with the latest information on healthy child rearing practices this is information most mothers seek.

Witness the growth of parenting magazines such as BabyTalk, Parenting, and Family Life, and the discussion on popular talk and radio shows such as Dr. Laura and Oprah Winfrey. Nor is anything wrong with helping families cope with stress, financial troubles, or child care situations our culture is full of mediating structures that do just that. Consider the church that provides day care on a sliding fee, the neighbor who comes through when the provider doesn t, and the aunt who pitches in when finances are tight. What s wrong with the Task Force s proposal is that it gives state bureaucrats the power to oversee, regulate, and control these practices. If the legislature implements the Task Force s recommendations, Oklahoma will evolve from a state where parents know best to one where politicians know best a direction rejected by most citizens and one unsuited to free people in a free society. J

About the Author

Darcy Ann Olsen is director of education and child policy at the Cato Institute (www.cato.org). She has worked extensively on children s issues, including child care, preschool, school-age child care, and social services. Prior to joining Cato, Olsen worked for three years as a transitional house manager and drug counselor for the D.C. Coalition for the Homeless. She has testified before Congress and appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including National Public Radio, Politically Incorrect, Inside Politics, The O Reilly Factor, The Early Show, The Today Show, and CBS and NBC Nightly News.

Olsen holds a bachelor s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a master s degree in international education from New York University.

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Endnotes 1 Governor s Task Force on Early Childhood Education: Report and Recommendations for Oklahoma Infants, Toddlers and Preschool Children (from Birth through Age Four) and their Families, December 14, 2000, Attachment no. 1: Executive Order 2000-04, p. 95. The report is available at http://www.governor.state.ok.us/ earlychildhoodtfreport.pdf.

2

Ibid., p. 45.

3

Ibid., p. 6.

4

Ibid., p. 6.

5

See, for instance, Darcy Ann Olsen, The Advancing Nanny State: Why the Government Should Stay out of Child Care, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 285, October 23, 1997, http:// www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-285.html

6

Governor s Task Force Report, p. 5.

7

Ibid., p. 117, 119.

8

According to the Governor s Task Force Report, there were an estimated 232,600 children under age 5 in 1999; 52,335 of them lived in poverty.

The total number of children under age 5 is projected to decrease over the next 9 years to 220,196 by 2010. Ibid., Tables 1 and 7.

9

Business, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 333, February 9, 1999, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/ pa-333es.html

According to the Census Bureau, the average childcare cost for families who pay for childcare is $4,420 per year. Sharon Kagan, past president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, estimates the cost of high quality preschool at $5,800 per child. See Kristin Smith, Who s Minding the Kids? Census Bureau Current Population Report P70-70, issued October 2000, p. 26; and Sharon Kagan and Nancy Cohen, Funding and Financing Early Care and Education: A Review of Issues and Strategies, Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University, 1997, p. 10.

10

National Center for Children in Poverty, Map and Track: 1998 Edition, p. 194.

11

Governor s Task Force Report, p. 25.

12

Lyndon B. Johnson, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, Book 1, January 1 to May 31, 1965 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 556.

13

For a review of relevant research see Darcy Ann Olsen, Universal Preschool is No Golden Ticket: Why Government Should not Enter the Preschool

10

14

Lawrence J. Schweinhart, Lasting Benefits of Preschool Programs, ERIC Digest EDO-PS-94-2, January 1994, http://ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/eece/ pubs/digests/1994/schwei94.html

15

Ibid. For the Task Force s discussion of Perry Preschool and the Abecedarian projects see the Governor s Task Force Report, pp. 23-28.

16

For further discussion, see Darcy Ann Olsen, Universal Preschool is No Golden Ticket, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 333, February 9, 1999, pp. 11-14.

17

Ibid., pp. 7-9.

18

Ibid., pp. 17-20.

19

General Accounting Office, Head Start: Research Provides Little Information on Impact of Current Program, GAO/HEHS-97-59, April 1997.

20

See Darcy Ann Olsen, Universal Preschool is No Golden Ticket.

21

Laura Henderson, Kathleen Basile, and Gary Henry, Prekindergarten Longitudinal Study 1997-1998 School Year Annual Report, Georgia State University Applied Research Center School of Policy Studies, April 1999, pp. 29-40.

22

James Salzer, School Readiness the Same for Tots; Results Unchanged Despite Pre-K, The Florida Times-Union, November 1, 1999.

23

Discussion with author and Ron Haskins, Beyond Metaphor: The Efficacy of Early Childhood Education, American Psychologist 44, no. 2 (February 1989): 280.

24

See, for instance, David Elkind, Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk (1987; New York: Knopf, 1997), Stanley Greenspan and Beryl Benderly, The Growth of the Mind, (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997), Patricia Morgan, Who Needs Parents? The Effects of Childcare and Early Education on Children in Britain and the USA, (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 1996), and Raymond S. Moore, When Delay Isn t Procrastination, in Continuing Issues in Early Childhood Education, (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Publishing Company, 1990).

25

Thirty-eight percent of American 3-year-olds also attend preschool. Mark Littman and Deirdre Gaquin, Education Statistics of the United

For more information, e-mail info@publicagenda.org

States: First Edition, 1999, (Washington, D.C.: Bernan Press, 1999) pp. 1-13.

26

For instance, SAT scores dropped from 543 verbal and 516 math in 1966 to 505 and 511 in 1998. For discussion and additional measures, see Andrew Coulson, Market Education, (London: Transaction Publishers, 1999) pp. 177-218.

27

Edward F. Zigler, Formal Schooling for FourYear-Olds? No in Early Schooling: The National Debate, ed. Sharon L. Kagan and Edward F. Zigler (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 36-37.

28

U.S. Department of Education, America s Kindergartners, NCES 2000-070, February 2000.

29

Sherlie Svestka, Financing Preschool for All Children, ERIC Digest, ED389471, December 1995.

30

National Center for Education Statistics, Elementary and Secondary Education: An International Perspective, Department of Education, March 2000, pp. 50-56.

31

Ibid.

32

Public Agenda, Necessary Compromises, 2000.

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33

Governor Keating s address is on-line at http:// www.governor.state.ok.us/sos01text.htm

34

Steve Beebe, Oklahoma Income Tax Hits the Poor, Too, Perspective: Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, vol. 8, no. 1, January 2001.

35

For more information on education reform see Darcy Ann Olsen and Matthew J. Brouillette, Reclaiming Our Schools: Increasing Parental Control of Education through the Universal Education Credit, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 388, December 6, 2000. For information on the history of government involvement in schooling and the benefits of market-based education, see Coulson, Market Education.

36

See, for instance, Jay P. Greene, A Survey of Results from Voucher Experiments: Where We Are and What We Know, Civic Report: Manhattan Institute, July 2000; Philip Vassallo, More Than Grades: How Choice Boosts Parental Involvement and Benefits Children, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 383, October 26, 2000, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-383es.html

Board of Trustees

Greg S. Allen H Enid Blake Arnold H Oklahoma City William M. Avery H Oklahoma City Steve W. Beebe H Duncan G.T. Blankenship H Oklahoma City John A. Brock H Tulsa David R. Brown, M.D. H Oklahoma City Aaron Burleson H Altus Ed L. Calhoon, M.D. H Beaver Jim Cantrell H Lawton Robert H. Chitwood H Tulsa Tom Coburn, M.D. H Muskogee Paul A. Cox H Oklahoma City Josephine Freede H Oklahoma City Kent Frizzell H Claremore John T. Hanes H Oklahoma City Ralph Harvey H Oklahoma City Paul H. Hitch H Guymon Henry F. Kane H Bartlesville Thurman Magbee H Oklahoma City Tom H. McCasland, III H Duncan Lew Meibergen H Enid Ronald L. Mercer H Bethany Lloyd Noble, II H Tulsa Patrick Rooney H Oklahoma City Joseph F. Rumsey, Jr. H Oklahoma City Richard Sias H Oklahoma City John Snodgrass H Ardmore William Thurman, M.D. H Oklahoma City Betty Lou Lee Upsher H Oklahoma City Lew Ward H Enid Gary W. Wilson, M.D. H Lawton Daniel J. Zaloudek H Tulsa

Adjunct Scholars Will Clark, Ph.D.

University of Oklahoma

David Deming, Ph.D. University of Oklahoma

J. Rufus Fears, Ph.D. University of Oklahoma

Bobbie L. Foote, Ph.D. University of Oklahoma (Ret.)

E. Scott Henley, Ph.D., J.D. Oklahoma City University

James E. Hibdon, Ph.D. University of Oklahoma (Ret.)

Russell W. Jones, Ph.D. University of Central Oklahoma

Andrew W. Lester, J.D.

Oklahoma City University (Adjunct)

David L. May, Ph.D. Oklahoma City University

Ann Nalley, Ph.D. Cameron University

Bruce Newman, Ph.D.

Western Oklahoma State College

Stafford North, Ph.D.

Oklahoma Christian University

Paul A. Rahe, Ph.D. University of Tulsa

W. Robert Reed, Ph.D. University of Oklahoma

Michael Scaperlanda, J.D. University of Oklahoma

Legal Counsel

DeBee Gilchrist & Lidia H Oklahoma City

Staff

Brett A. Magbee H Executive Director Brandon Dutcher H Research Director Chip Carter H Development Director Marilyn Tardibono H Admin. Assistant

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Andrew C. Spiropoulos, J.D. Oklahoma City University

Daniel Sutter, Ph.D. University of Oklahoma

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