GEORGIA’S government has gotten quite talented at using the “poor mouth” excuse for all that ails the state. It goes this way:
“We just don’t have the money to do that without raising your taxes. We love you too much to do that and, besides, we think we’re taxing you too much already.”
OK, let’s grant that there are some citizens who prefer keeping the jingle in their pockets to having good schools, smooth roads, sufficient water, adequate health care and so on. But how does Georgia explain the decay of a program that doesn’t involve any tax money at all and whose bank accounts are as flush as those of King Midas?
The reference is to Georgia’s once vaunted prekindergarten program, supposed to be made available for free to all state children, funded by lottery proceeds and once lauded for being the first of its kind in the nation. Between it and the HOPE college scholarships, this supposedly justified “gambling” because of the public good that would be delivered.
NOW, AS THOUGH to show that it is a bad bet to wager on government doing a good job on anything, a new report shows the pre-K effort falling far short of promises even while the funds are sitting around in banks to deliver on those pledges.
Georgia can’t “poor mouth” its way out of this one.
According to “Time to Lead Again: The Promise of Georgia Pre-K,” a study by the nonprofit Southern Education Foundation, the program has grown too slowly, kept up with neither population growth nor demand, has long waiting lists, and “is a promise to Georgia that has not been fulfilled.”
In addition, per child spending (adjusted for inflation) has fallen from $6,827 in 1995 to $4,010 in 2007. There are about 79,000 students being served while roughly 40,000 are not being served.
As the program is voluntary and not mandatory, it is hard to know, other than there being waiting lists, just how many children are not being accommodated. Some parents may well not believe their child, at 4, is “ready” for school; others don’t buy into the concept that “growing up” starts that young and requires what amounts to 14 years in a classroom.
STILL, THE ANNUAL lottery-derived support for the program was $308 million last year while the uncommitted, banked “rainy day” reserves were $507 million — way more than enough to provide every 4-year-old the promised place in the program.
This is not meant to unre-servedly praise the concept, even though educators are in general agreement that a “Head Start” has never held a child back in learning. Frankly, far too many young parents seem to look upon this more as “free baby-sitting” than an educational boon for their child.
And even though it doesn’t cost the taxpayers any money at all, like everything that comes from government “for free” it soon seems to take on the disguise of being an entitlement rather than a gift for the betterment of the community.
Still, it is one thing to be concerned about philosophical principles and quite another to be looking a disaster in the face and turning one’s head away. The state of educational attainment in Georgia is a disaster. In a few years, with a workforce dominated by dropouts and children left behind, it will turn into an economic calamity.
According to the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, which oversees the pre-K program, the current condition is more a capacity problem than anything else — i.e., not enough room at the inn. Well, if you can’t “poor mouth” than another excuse must be found.
WHILE MANY of these state-paid pre-K programs are housed in public schools, others are in private facilities. Dare one suggest that if tuition were restored to the $6,827 level of 1995 instead of being almost $3,000 per pupil less as it is at present, both public and private sectors would be adding classroom space at this very instant?
One doesn’t have to be an accountant to see what’s wrong with this bottom line.
Whether some parents avail themselves of the program for the wrong reasons is not the issue here. The issue is that education is good, more is better, and that anything promised to be equally provided to all 4-year-olds must be made available.
And, given that no tax money is involved and that there’s more than a half billion dollars in unspent money dedicated to this effort just sitting in banks, drawing interest, there’s simply no excuse.
Now government bungling and mismanagement might be an explanation for this condition — but it’s not an excuse.
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