President Barack Obama’s plan to greatly expand public preschool was officially introduced in Congress on Wednesday in a bipartisan bill whose supporters include California Rep. George Miller.
In his State of the Union address, Obama called for new federal funding for early childhood programs for children from birth through age 5. The president’s 2014 budget proposal included $75 billion over the next decade in grants to states to create or expand public preschool programs for children from low-income families. The proposal recommends raising the federal tobacco tax to cover the cost of the new program.
In the first sign of bipartisan support for such an idea, the House version of the bill, which is nearly identical to the president’s proposal, was introduced by Miller, D-Martinez, and Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y. Hanna is one of 22 Republican senators and House representatives who have not signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Those who signed the pledge vowed never to raise taxes while in office.
The bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Sponsors of the bill have not yet said exactly which states would be eligible for grant funding under the new program, which requires, among other qualifications, that states have preschool educational standards, offer full-day classes, require teachers to hold bachelor’s degrees and pay preschool teachers on par with K-12 teachers.
California’s state-funded preschool program meets some of these qualifications, but not all of them, so it is unclear if the state would be eligible for funding. If California is deemed eligible, it could nearly double its spending on early education, according to predictions released by the U.S. Department of Education in June. The language of the bill indicates that states could be eligible for funding if they can show they will use the money to bring their programs up to par.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined Miller, Harkin and Hanna and movie star and early childhood advocate Jennifer Garner at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to unveil the new bill.
Senate and House aids expect debate on the bill to begin early next year.
Lillian Mongeau covers early childhood education. Contact her or follow her @lrmongeau.
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Comments (17)
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Regis 10 years ago10 years ago
Thanks Navigio and Lillian, now I understand the problem with the posts. Navigio, I've perused your response and here are my thoughts. You've indicated that punishment is a response to an offense. May I ask, are there not situations, where punishment is dished out with out offense taking place? I've seen this in the current administration in the White House, that uses the IRS to punish Conservative groups. Or during the last Government Shutdown, … Read More
Thanks Navigio and Lillian, now I understand the problem with the posts.
Navigio, I’ve perused your response and here are my thoughts. You’ve indicated that punishment is a response to an offense. May I ask, are there not situations, where punishment is dished out with out offense taking place?
I’ve seen this in the current administration in the White House, that uses the IRS to punish Conservative groups. Or during the last Government Shutdown, where the National Park Service was instructed to make life as difficult as possible for the Citizens of this country, by shutting down open mall memorials to Veterans, locking up tourists in Yellowstone and many other ‘punishments’.
If I saw that my HARD EARNED money was spent sensibly, than maybe my attitude would be better, but all around me, I see waste (LAUSD IPad, anyone), outright cronyism and a very, very poor return on the money invested.
The attitude of many people in Government, is that it’s not their money, thus the incredible growth in Public Pension costs (CALPERS, anyone?)and a prime example, right here in California, was the retirement of an Alameda County employee, with an outgoing pension of over $400K a year AND an $8,000 car allowance, each year. That, my friends, is an outrage. That money does not grow on trees, it comes either from the Taxpayer, or it is borrowed to be repaid later, with interest.
Do any of you see any of this as sustainable? I surely do not.
Replies
navigio 10 years ago10 years ago
Studies show there is a significant return on investment for education spending, though I dont know how or whether that differs by district or state. I do think you have the right to be outraged by things you find outrageous, and large pensions are probably good examples. The problem is, of course, that the things that outrage us are generally not the norm, so when we force the policy pendulum the other way based on outrage, … Read More
Studies show there is a significant return on investment for education spending, though I dont know how or whether that differs by district or state.
I do think you have the right to be outraged by things you find outrageous, and large pensions are probably good examples. The problem is, of course, that the things that outrage us are generally not the norm, so when we force the policy pendulum the other way based on outrage, we usually end up undoing things that are productive and within reason as well. Specifically within education, for example, there are some changes going on with both pensions and with health benefit contributions (likely because of obamacare) that have the potential for creating an environment that drives out quality employees. This may save us money, but it wont help any kids.
el 10 years ago10 years ago
Interesting that they are jumping right to requiring a full day preschool. While I’m in favor of that, I’d rather have half-day preschool available to twice as many kids if we aren’t going to fully fund it.
Regis 10 years ago10 years ago
The deletion of my post is an obvious sign, that the truth hurts, doesn’t it? That’s fine with me, because you can cling to your notions of magic money coming from the Government to fix all your ills that you’ve voted upon us and I can see the end result from here.
Good luck! You’re gonna need it.
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Lillian Mongeau 10 years ago10 years ago
Regis, We haven't deleted any of your posts. Sometimes the system takes a few minutes to update - maybe that's what happened? I checked the back end of our website and there are three posts on this story from you, all of which are still here. Was there a fourth post that didn't make it? Happy to see if I can find it or for you to post again. If you do that please also send … Read More
Regis,
We haven’t deleted any of your posts. Sometimes the system takes a few minutes to update – maybe that’s what happened? I checked the back end of our website and there are three posts on this story from you, all of which are still here. Was there a fourth post that didn’t make it? Happy to see if I can find it or for you to post again. If you do that please also send me a copy of the new post so I can check that it went up or trouble shoot if it didn’t.
Thanks for reading,
Lillian
navigio 10 years ago10 years ago
So you know, el's post just below (12:04) was swallowed for a few hours. It was linked from the main page in the comment list, but the comment didnt exist so the link just went to the top of the page. In addition, i've noticed that story pages seem to be cached differently. I have gotten old versions of a page with comments when using links, but when refreshing, getting a newer one (this never … Read More
So you know, el’s post just below (12:04) was swallowed for a few hours. It was linked from the main page in the comment list, but the comment didnt exist so the link just went to the top of the page. In addition, i’ve noticed that story pages seem to be cached differently. I have gotten old versions of a page with comments when using links, but when refreshing, getting a newer one (this never happened before). This could be a function of changing how things are loaded dynamically (though i havent debugged anything). Since you think you’ve found everything, I will report if I notice anything else.
Lillian Mongeau 10 years ago10 years ago
That’s so weird, because I saw El’s post right away. I will bring this up with our tech team. Thanks for the feedback.
el 10 years ago10 years ago
This afternoon, I was seeing EdSource from a week ago. 🙂
Also, it used to be that the name/email fields were prefilled, and that has stopped. It would be good to have that back. I’d hate to make a typo and accidentally become someone else. 🙂
John Fensterwald 10 years ago10 years ago
We’ve had some website issues, el. I’ll bring up the prefilled fields issue with out website manager on Monday. Thanks.
John C. Osborn 10 years ago10 years ago
Tech here. We've had serious speed and security issues over the past two months. As a result, I've been optimizing our website and increasing our security measures. The optimization involves caching webpages; something that requires fine tuning through feedback by users. I made a few changes that should load comments quicker. Also, Wordpress in its latest update strengthened its security and decreased the time before it "times out" a user, forcing a reload. This could be affecting … Read More
Tech here.
We’ve had serious speed and security issues over the past two months. As a result, I’ve been optimizing our website and increasing our security measures. The optimization involves caching webpages; something that requires fine tuning through feedback by users.
I made a few changes that should load comments quicker. Also, WordPress in its latest update strengthened its security and decreased the time before it “times out” a user, forcing a reload. This could be affecting your log in.
Hit me up edsourceweb@gmail.com with any issues.
Cheers~
el 10 years ago10 years ago
On this site, us ordinary users don’t have a login – we are just typing in a name and email address with every comment. It used to prefill via a cookie or local storage, but doesn’t now.
I well know the pain of caching and hope you’re past the hump now.
Regis 10 years ago10 years ago
"Bill to expand TAXPAYER funded preschool introduced in Congress". There, I corrected it. This is another failure of liberal thinking. Our children aren't learning, so let's throw more money at it. They have rights! It's not the parents fault, it's not the children's fault, it's our fault! The very thought of Government involvement in the raising of the Sheeple should make anybody doubly wary of their 'help'. Look at the results of … Read More
“Bill to expand TAXPAYER funded preschool introduced in Congress”.
There, I corrected it. This is another failure of liberal thinking. Our children aren’t learning, so let’s throw more money at it. They have rights! It’s not the parents fault, it’s not the children’s fault, it’s our fault!
The very thought of Government involvement in the raising of the Sheeple should make anybody doubly wary of their ‘help’. Look at the results of what we have now. The graduation rate is an obvious indicator. It is up to the PARENTS to get their kids reading early, not us, the taxpayer. This is called personal responsibility. You expose them to books, you read to them, you get involved, like I did with my three (now adults) children and that way, they are proficient.
Those who plan on counting on the Government teaching your children everything you need to know, will be sorely disappointed at the results. And now we have lawyer dude, suing the schools, like that other group of Latino lawyers, suing school districts and expecting positive results.
From birth through age 5, because ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. As an example, before the left-leaning courts decided that just about everything is a ‘constitutional right’ and the government took over education, I’d venture to say, that with parents actually paying out of their pockets for their children’s education, there was a lot more involvement in their success and I’d bet it was a heck of a lot cheaper, than it is now.
Have you ever seen a single government program, that wasn’t filled with waste, excess spending, poor results and increasing costs? Not to mention that nothing they devise, ever goes away. The ACA is a classic example of this.
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navigio 10 years ago10 years ago
paying taxes isnt a punishment.
Regis 10 years ago10 years ago
navigio, I heartily disagree with you. It is indeed a punishment. Taxation without representation is a clear violation of our founding principles. Why, we recently had it happen in July of this year, when the California State Board of Equalization, decided that the taxes we were paying weren't enough and increased the gasoline taxes by over 3%. It is when the Government decides that tobacco taxes have to be increased again and again, … Read More
navigio, I heartily disagree with you. It is indeed a punishment. Taxation without representation is a clear violation of our founding principles. Why, we recently had it happen in July of this year, when the California State Board of Equalization, decided that the taxes we were paying weren’t enough and increased the gasoline taxes by over 3%.
It is when the Government decides that tobacco taxes have to be increased again and again, by both State and Federal entities. It is when we see our money spent foolishly, beyond belief, with fraud at every level.
It is when you have an near-overwhelming majority of the populace, taking more than they’re putting in and voting themselves even more entitlements upon entitlements, that threaten to bankrupt this country.
It is when you have exponential growth in not only entitlements, but government itself, and that same beast has to insert itself into every aspect of your life and track and monitor you for your good, while they’re at it.
It is you have powerful Government unions, behaving much like a shadow political party unto themselves, influencing with their huge coffers, elections statewide and this is how my tax dollars are spent.
It is when you have a government that spends far beyond it’s means and funding this with increasingly fragile debt, held by foreign entities that are no longer willing to play this game with our Dollar as the accepted currency of the world.
navigio 10 years ago10 years ago
Punishment is a response to an offense. None of what you describe there fits the bill except maybe tobacco and gas taxes, but even then, coercion is not quite the same thing. That it feels like punishment to you is understandable, but I don't think it's intended that way. Especially when it comes to education funding. Btw, the edsource website has a bunch of bugs the last week or so. Posts not showing up for a … Read More
Punishment is a response to an offense. None of what you describe there fits the bill except maybe tobacco and gas taxes, but even then, coercion is not quite the same thing. That it feels like punishment to you is understandable, but I don’t think it’s intended that way. Especially when it comes to education funding.
Btw, the edsource website has a bunch of bugs the last week or so. Posts not showing up for a while seems to be one of the symptoms.
Lillian Mongeau 10 years ago10 years ago
Yes, we’ve been going through some rough technical times. We are on it and I think most of the issues have been resolved at this point. Thank you for your patience. I will mention the issue of comments possibly getting swallowed to our staff tech expert.
Robert Kwiat 10 years ago10 years ago
This sounds like a great way to help ensure pre school opportunities for those children whose parents otherwise could not afford them. However, if and when the funding dries up, what happens to the programs that are started in public schools who utilize the funds as the sole revenue for their preschools? We could be looking at another typical, temporarily funded program that districts may have to scrap when they are forced to flip the bill.