It’s great to see the Seattle Times editorial board so enthusiastically on board in support of high quality early education. But honestly guys… the logical next step shouldn’t be all that difficult:
Talking about how beneficial early education can be for kids and families is easy. Finding money for it is a much bigger challenge.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Early education has emerged as a promising strategy for closing the gap between low- and high-achieving students. Educators and lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, are increasingly pushing early education as a necessity, rather than a merely “nice to have.”
Still, early education represents less than 1 percent of the state budget. During the 2013-2015 budget cycle, the state put $163 million into the Department of Early Learning.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
During this legislative session, which began Monday, lawmakers should take a hard look at how to significantly boost participation and funding in Washington’s early education programs.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Statewide, about 41 percent of Washington’s children, ages 3 to 4, are enrolled in an early education program compared with a national average of 47 percent, according to Education Week.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
The state’s main pre-K effort is the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, known as ECEAP, that targets children ages 3 to 5 from families earning 110 percent or less than the federal poverty level. For 2014, that means an income of less than $26,235 for a family of four.
Last December, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy reported that children who participated in ECEAP scored better on standardized tests in third and fourth grade than similar children who did not attend the program.
ECEAP shows results, but participation is way too low. During the 2013-2014 school year, 48,259 children were eligible for the program, the state estimated. But the state only funded 8,741 and another 10,390 took part in Head Start, a federally-funded program.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Therefore, about 60 percent — or more than 29,000 ECEAP-eligible students — were not enrolled in either the state or federal program.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed pumping an additional $156.3 million into early education to add 6,358 slots for ECEAP as well as expanding Early Achievers, a state program that rates and trains child-care providers to provide early learning curriculum.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
The governor’s proposal recognizes the variety of ways to provide early education. Even if the state provided enough ECEAP for all eligible children, there are many other children not eligible.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Some families prefer to send their kids to child-care centers or keep them at home with relatives. The state does not have a broad, one-size-fits all solution, but it does not have to.
As long as children are receiving some form of high-quality instruction before they enter kindergarten, they are more likely to perform better in later grades.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Funding for early education pales in comparison to K-12, but that system is taking center stage in the state budget discussion.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
State lawmakers are grappling with how to fund the McCleary ruling, a state Supreme Court decision mandating the state to fully pay for basic education. They also face Initiative 1351, a voter-approved measure that limits class sizes and calls for about 25,000 more school employees. Funding both could cost at least $4 billion during the next biennium, according to lawmakers’ estimates.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Elected leaders, state and local, advocate for early learning as an investment that will make K-12 students more successful. During what promises to be a tough budget battle, lawmakers must keep in mind it is never too early for a child to succeed academically.
Um… we could always raise taxes.
Seriously. It’s great to see the Seattle Times editorial board finally put its weight behind high quality early learning. Now if only they would put their weight behind raising the tax revenue necessary to pay for it (you know, the way voters just did here in Seattle), we might finally get our state’s three- and four-year-old’s the high quality preschool they deserve and need.
Thankfully, you’re not getting any more money. Your project to put everyone on the government teat is getting drowned. And it’s fantastic.
@1 Preschool education is “government teat”? You wanna see someone suckling on the government teat, I’ll show you someone suckling on the government teat: http://tinyurl.com/nfatmfk
(Note this building is in Chicago, not Seattle; see the Sears Tower — now known as Willis Tower — in the background?)
(Full disclosure: Roger Rabbit owns Boeing stock. Why wouldn’t it? Any rational rabbit would rather take from taxpayers than be a taxpayer. I don’t vote for Republicans, but I manage to live with their suck-up-to-big-business policies.)
Maybe preschool education should be a city and county responsibility. If people in red counties don’t want to pay for preschool, then let their kids grow up stupid and go to trade school after graduating from junior high. You get what you pay for.
@1 Yeah, fuck those lazy shiftless four-year-olds, amirite?
@4: Yeah, there’s coal to be mined, get those brats to work.
Why so complicated?
Pre-schoolers from low income households can be more efficiently utilized as a direct source of fuel. The biomass conversion represented by an average North American 4 year old surpasses predicted career output of dirty coal once you account for the full overhead burden of employing low efficiency pre-schoolers to mine coal (extra supervision, chocolate milk breaks, story time, etc.).
@2: Couldn’t agree more. Hand out enormous piles of money to those assholes if you like, WA, and hundreds more assholes like them, but don’t come running to me for more because now all of a sudden it’s “for the kids.” I’ll keep my own money for my own kids, thanks.
One other alternative to spend money on is buying a huge tunneling machine to dig a hole under Seattle and pray that the piece of shit makes it all the way. Wait, what? It did?
And, for good measure, these early childhood education boondoggles are jobs programs. You want to make a difference in poor kids lives? Take that money and give it to their moms, in cash. They’re smart enough to figure out what to do with it.
Does anyone have any historical perspective? Did America always loathe the poor or is that new? If new, why?
@7
Is that an endorsement of a guaranteed national income? Because perhaps we could find some common ground there.
@8
Always. It’s part of that crazy Calvinist predetermination thing behind our so-called “Protestant work ethic”: your success in this world reflects your success in the next. So if you’re poor, it means you’re immoral, and thus condemned to Hell.
WA Senate Rs established 2/3rds rule for taxes including repeal of tax breaks. So the likelihood for any revenue for anything is basically nil. However…
Savoring a bit of schadenfreude amidst the shit storm that is WA State politics, Democrats help Republican Sen. Pam Roach unseat Tim Sheldon as president pro tempore:
http://www.theolympian.com/201.....#038;ihp=1
Pam Roach gets to run the Senate when Sir Brad ain’t around? There isn’t enough popcorn in the world…
“No tax” crowd has wasted trillions of tax dollars on dirty, counter-productive wars. But lifting the nation’s children and thereby lifting the nation, gets derided as tax money wasted. The right wing has never been correct about anything, ever. Why would we listen to their selfish and destructive foolishness?
“we might finally get our state’s three- and four-year-old’s the high quality preschool they deserve and need.”
Really pushing that “cradle to grave” idea hard these days aren’t we?
@3…Just what the fuck do you think they are learning at three years old? Trigonometry?
@8 America didn’t always loathe the poor, because there was a time when all Americans were poor. Affluence created this I’ve-got-mine-and-fuck-you nastiness (see @1 and @7 and @12 above).
@13 How to think, act, and talk like a civilized human being — training you obviously missed out on.
@9: Yes, absolutely. Ramp the EITC-style programs to the moon. Poor people are poor, not stupid – they’ll figure out how best to use it.
I’d gladly pay higher taxes in that context if it were a passthrough like that, as an amplifier for people who can work, with true cash assistance for those who can’t.
I just can’t stand the graft and crony bullshit that will result if we just pour more money into what exists.
@15…That is what parents are for.
@ 17
Parents like Mike Huckabee? Or Sarah Palin perhaps. Maybe even these people?
When I was in 7th grade one of the girls I didn’t know got knocked up, and it came out later that it was her own goddamn father that did it. When I was in my late 20’s one of the main douchebags at my old high school, a kid who literally had it all including getting a brand new Alpha Romeo Spyder for his 16th birthday, left his stash of coke out and his three year old ate some of it and died.
Seems to me that parents aren’t the beat-all to end-all. One of the reasons why sex education became a thing, was because parents weren’t teaching their kids anything about it, at all. Another good reason to get kids into something like school at an early age is so the parents can have time to work.
@17 Yes, in worlds more perfect than this one. See @18.
Whenever I see wingers ranting against education spending and “socialism,” I think of two things.
Thing #1: Free universal education, instituted in the late 1800s, transformed America from a third-world agricultural country into an industrial and military superpower.
Thing #2: The government owned, taxpayer-financed Columbia River dams were conceived as make-work projects to create jobs during the depression. The government planners didn’t know what to do with the electricity until Hitler and Tojo gave them a use for it: Making aluminum and plutonium. Those dams won the war.
The problem with wingers is they’re so short-sighted they can’t see past the ends of their noses. Needless to say, someone like that can’t comprehend the value of either preschool or government investment in infrastructure and the economy. Thank God these people didn’t run America for the last 150 years. If they had we’d all still be barefoot subsistence farmers — and speaking German and Japanese.
I hope the WA Supreme Court keeps the state Senate 2/3 vote to raise taxes in mind when deciding what to do with the legislature, as I can’t imagine a more effective demonstration of contempt than that. Hopefully they throw their assessment in jail.
Ahhh yes the vomit master always using that 6″ wide paintbrush to paint everyone the same!
How about Jesse Jackson Sr. teaching Jesse Jackson Jr. the value of graft for $750,000 from the campaign fund? Since Jackson Sr. shakes down the corporations and gets dough, Puddy guesses Jackson Jr. thought he could shake down his campaign fund for money!
Mike Huckabee was discussing the visuals of Jay-Z and Beyonce dressed in lingerie on stage gyrating her ASS in his videos vomit master! Jay-Z is a shrewd bidnessman. Unlike Snoop Dog, 49 1/2 Cent, Lil Wayne, etc., their commitment to marriage and monogamy is exemplary. Maybe that’s why Solange went nutzo in the elevator video against Jay-Z when he was talking to another lady that night. Beyonce has a hit song Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) which describes he not in it without a ring on it is a great message to teenage pregnancy and two parent children in the inner city.
Butt that said, black hip-hop music is very sexually explicit. Just watch some of those videos with asses twerking in thongs or rubdown happening. That’s what Huckabee was trying to discuss and the fact Beyonce and Jay-Z are multiple time visitors to the whitey house!
Now to Sarah Palin, she posted a picture of her son and his guide dog. People Eating Tasty Animals went nutzo until their hero Ellen Degenerate’s picture skipped over by PETA http://www.tpnn.com/2015/01/03.....-attacked/
Amazingly this is skipped over by vomit man above. We all know why!
Early learning is a waste of time and money. It has no long term effect. It is worthless. Kids ages 2-5 are better off with parents bonding with them. This is about turning kids over to the government. I would be more inclined to support President Obama’s Community College proposal. I would make some changes but it makes more sense.