I hope ABC News doesn't try to pass off its Friday night special, co-produced with the Reason Foundation, as journalism. One of the segments of the ABC special is on universal preschool, which the libertarian Reason Foundation opposes, loudly and often. That's fine. We like a plurality of views in America. Otherwise, how could Rush and the many far-right ideologues dominate talk radio? But how does a legitimate news organization, assuming that ABC News still is one, co-produce a report with a foundation like Reason that has been one of leading voices battling universal preschool?
The ABC report is based on videos produced by Reason.tv, which is an arm of the Reason Foundation. The videos are part of what Reason.tv calls "The
Drew Carey Project." Yes, Drew Carey the comedian. I guess that if Al Franken can be a U.S. Senator, Drew Carey can be a cranky commentator. The main voice in the video is Reason's Lisa Snell.
Here are the reasons Snell and others give for opposing universal preschool:
1. Family day care providers will be put out of business. The person who makes this argument runs a family day care and says that she doesn't have time to get a bachelor's degree.
2. Universal standards, that would come with universal funding, would cause children to "lose out on the magic that is preschool."
3. Non-profit operators would lose out, because they couldn't compete with free, high quality preschool.
4. Choice and competition has given us successful day care operations and preschools and the government support would upset the preschool free market.
5. As she's argued many times, Snell says that if universal preschool worked so well then Oklahoma, which has one of the most successful such programs, would have higher school level test scores.
6. She also says that, if government funding were good for education, then the K-12 system would be more successful. That it is not, in her view, means that government spending will ruin preschool too.
It's a hodgepodge of ideas that celebrate unregulated markets, privatization, competition and so on. Haven't we been trying those ideas for the last 30 years? Early childhood education sector is probably the sector that has embraced these ideas the most. And one would have to be slavishly ideological to argue that it's worked out well so far. Much of the child care in this country is so bad that it's actually harmful to kids. Many family preschools are run by people with little or no formal education. Kids spend lots of time watching TV. Many state-funded preschools offer very poor quality as well. And, despite the bad quality, parents don't have a choice. They have to work. They need to have a safe place for their children. They hope that it is at least somewhat educational. Some private preschools are great, of course. So are some child care centers. But there aren't enough of them and middle-income families often can't afford them.
Edward Zigler, the Yale eminence grise of preschool and childcare, speaks in the Drew Carey video in favor of providing high quality preschool. He says studies find that the average quality of day care in the U.S. is between poor and mediocre. He says that getting kids ready for school is the nation's biggest challenge. He doesn't disagree that many public school need to improve. But he doesn't think that excuse should be used to refuse to help children get ready to succeed academically.
In the interests of full disclosure, the Pew Charitable Trusts, which supports universal preschool, has been a supporter of the Hechinger Institute. The Hechinger Institute does not endorse universal preschool. It does endorse, however, high quality journalism. And this is not journalism. And ABC News, and Stossel, shouldn't claim that it is.