Texas Plans to Be 40th State to Apply for NCLB Waiver

September 26, 2012

Sarah McIntosh

Texas wants the federal government to release it from education policies originating with the state’s former governor: the state’s new education commissioner said he will request a No Child Left Behind waiver.

In July, Washington and Wisconsin were granted federal waivers of the 2002 law, making a total of 33 states to accept direct U.S. Education Department oversight and 40 states to request it.

“The timing was right to apply,” said Debbie Ratcliffe, director of communications for the Texas Education Agency. “Texas is currently in the process of developing a new state accountability system. Having both a federal and a state system would be a burden to our schools. The Texas system by far surpasses the federal system, and our districts and campuses are better served by having one strong system. We need less redundancy and more focus on improving student achievement.”

Michael Williams, the state’s new commissioner, made the announcement in September, the first after his appointment.

The state is taking public comment on its plan through September 27, then planning to submit its application in January or February rather than its usual Adequate Yearly Progress report, Ratcliffe said.

NCLB was due for reauthorization in 2007, but so far only the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has managed to pass any related legislation, which has stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Former President George W. Bush proposed what became the law, embedding policies from when he was governor of Texas.

‘Sprawling Set of Mandates’
Texas schools, like most across the country, have struggled to meet federal requirements, with 70 percent of its school districts labeled “failing” under last year’s benchmarks. The law requires states to educate nearly all students to “proficient” levels on standardized tests.

“Texas’ decision to apply for a waiver is not really surprising. NCLB is so onerous it forces states to label so many schools as failing that states are trying to find some leeway,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “NCLB was the last piece of Great Society legislation enacted. All of the good intentions and uneven design characteristics of any Great Society legislation is present in NCLB. It has mostly led to a sprawling set of mandates, requirements, and bureaucracies, which have created enormous problems.”

The waiver would give more control over its accountability system and how it treats failing schools in return for enacting certain policies the Obama administration requires, “and in theory it will be monitored by the Department of Education,” Hess said.

Meddling, or Oversight?
The multiplication of federal overseers and accountability mechanisms will reduce benefits to poor and minority children, who benefited from the decades of accountability-focused reforms that culminated in NCLB, says Sandy Kress, an attorney who helped write the law.

He puts states requesting waivers into two groups: those that “want out of accountability” and those that want “more integrated accountability.”

“The bureaucracies and the unions are tired of being pressed to keep improving education for disadvantaged students. They don’t like choice. They don’t like efficiency. And they don’t like the pressure of accountability,” he said.

Waiting for Details
Kress said Texas likely falls into the group that wants more integrated accountability, but that won’t be evident until its waiver application is published.

“The feds have done a terrible job administratively of implementing NCLB, and the law has language that ought to be clarified and fixed,” he said. “The feds shouldn’t micromanage states on education. But so long as they’re spending our tax dollars, they ought to expect accountability for the money. That’s about all they ought to do.”

Texas has seen a variety of education reform proposals in recent months, most notably with the lieutenant governor publicly announcing he will work to help pass voucher legislation in the next session.

“Texas already has a lot of top-down accountability with its new testing system, which was first used this year,” said James Golson, an education analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “What the state needs is bottom-up accountability. Parents need to be empowered and given greater flexibility and choice in education for their children.”

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/09/26/texas-plans-be-40th-state-apply-nclb-waiver

 

 

Green Mountain Care Could Cost Vermonters Nearly $10 Billion a Year

December 13, 2011

Sarah McIntosh

A new report to Vermont lawmakers raises concerns about the costs of implementing Green Mountain Care, a proposed universal single-payer health care system for the state.

Earlier this year, lawmakers mandated a report from Vermont’s Joint Fiscal Office, the Department of Banking, Insurance, and Securities, and Health Care Administration to provide an “estimate of the costs of Vermont’s current health care system compared to the costs of a reformed health care system upon completion of Green Mountain Care and the additional provisions of this act.” The report, “Costs of Vermont’s Health Care System Comparison of Baseline and Reformed System,” was issued in November. According to its projections, Green Mountain Care would cost as much as $9.5 billion a year.

Costly New Government Bureaucracy

The new projection does represent a savings of $500 million compared to the status quo, according to projections. If Vermont continues on its current health care path, “Vermont health care spending will more than double from 2009 to 2019, from $4.7 billion to $10 billion,” the report states. But Darcie Johnston, founder of the free-market-oriented group Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, says that while health care costs will increase without reform, the choice is not between a universal system and the status quo.

“No one is suggesting doing nothing. But I expect a new government bureaucracy will be even more costly than predicted by this report,” Johnston said.

Johnston says excessive government involvement in the marketplace is the reason health care costs have risen so drastically already.

“Because Vermont has mandated health reforms for the last 20 plus years, that has only resulted in driving up the cost on health insurance, not reducing costs,” Johnston said.

Expect Lower Savings, Higher Costs

John McClaughry, president of the Ethan Allen Institute, a public policy think tank in Vermont, is also troubled by the prospects of Green Mountain Care.

“The state’s cost figures are based on a roughly 7 percent annual increase in health care costs with no new program, and a much lower increase—yielding ‘savings’—under Green Mountain Care, which will provide services to thousands more who are now uninsured,” McClaughry said.

Murky Description of Savings

The report provides suggested policy reforms to address the rising costs to the taxpayers of health care, which it claims if implemented can create savings starting in 2014. The suggested policies are in areas such as “administrative simplification and streamlining; benefits; changes in clinical processes, including care management, malpractice reform, organizational reform, payment reform, and quality improvement; planning and capital investment management; and prevention and public health.”

The report estimates by 2020, budget savings from these steps will range from $553 million (5.5 percent) to $1.8 billion (18.3 percent of total spending).

McClaughry notes the definition of these so-called savings are quite vague, and he says it’s unrealistic to expect these claims to produce at the level suggested by the report.

“The state is quite vague about exactly how these ‘savings’ will be made to appear. ‘Efficiency,’ ‘fraud control,’ and especially ‘payment reform’ appear to be the key factors, but many suspect the state can hit its savings targets only by Quebec single-payer methods: fewer providers, less equipment, and lower reimbursement,” McClaughry said.

Eliminating Existing Insurers

Eliminating health insurance companies under a single payer system is not the answer, says Johnston, because “it drives up cost, limits choice, and forces individuals out of investing in health insurance.”

“The largest tax increase in Vermont history, which this system will require, will destroy the Vermont economy and job growth,” Johnston said. “Green Mountain Care is projected to create a $2 billion deficit combined over five years.”

McClaughry warns against eliminating insurance companies, saying they provide an important service.

“True insurance against unlikely but potentially catastrophic events is important. Making others pay for your prepaid health plan with zero co-pays and deductibles is inevitably disastrous,” McClaughry said.

Consumer-Driven Alternatives

Eliminating insurance companies and implementing of a single-payer system is not the only option, McClaughry notes.

“The Ethan Allen Institute has promoted a consumer-directed, market-oriented insurance program since 1994, but Vermont’s teeming left wing declares that ‘health care is a human right’ and demands that taxpayers be required to pay for ‘appropriate care at the appropriate time in the appropriate setting.’ They won’t rest until health insurance companies are extinguished,” McClaughry said.

Johnston agrees there are other paths.

“The other options include developing a vibrant exchange, reforming medical malpractice, expanding BluePrint for Health and other healthy living incentives, and additional free market reforms similar to what the Maine legislature passed this past spring,” Johnston said.

Vermont lawmakers will wait to make their final decision early in 2012, after the election. A series of public meetings are being held in November and December of 2011 in an effort to judge the public’s response to the proposals. McClaughry hopes lawmakers will reconsider the idea.

“Green Mountain Care will inevitably degenerate into rationing, waiting lines, maddening bureaucracies, demoralized doctors and nurses, shabby facilities, obsolete technology, declining quality of care, and much higher taxation,” McClaughry said.

 

 

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/13/green-mountain-care-could-cost-vermonters-nearly-10-billion-year

 

Internet Info:

“Costs of Vermont’s Health Care System Comparison of Baseline and Reformed System”: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/JFO/healthcare/November%20Report%20-%20Final.pdf

Vermonters for Health Care Freedom: www.vthealthcarefreedom.org

The Ethan Allen Institute: http://www.ethanallen.org/

 

Banning Epinephrine Inhalers: FDA Making It Harder to Breathe

December 7, 2011

Sarah McIntosh

Asthmatics face a deadline of December 31, 2011 to switch from using epinephrine inhalers to other prescription treatment methods under an order from the Food and Drug Administration.

At issue is the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) contained in the inhalers, which are subject to regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Although President Obama’s administration recently allowed a bypass of new ozone regulations at the EPA which were cited as too costly, the administration has announced no intention to allow an inhaler exception.

Gregory Conko, a senior fellow at the Washington-DC based Competitive Enterprise Institute, says this crackdown on inhalers should not come as a surprise.

“The phase-out of asthma inhalers with CFC propellants has been going on since 2008, so the recent withdrawal of over-the-counter Primatene Mist was not surprising. Nor was it the first,” Conko said. “It’s also not surprising, although it is worrisome, that FDA would insist on their withdrawal for environmental reasons.”

In a press statement, the FDA said the ban on CFC inhalers is required under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which the U.S. signed in 1987.

Exception Allowance Ignored

Conko says several other prescription inhalers powered with CFCs that were arguably more important therapeutically have already been withdrawn.

“The Protocol allowed for a long and gradual phase-out of CFCs over the past 20 years in order to encourage the development of alternative products, but it does allow for exceptions to the phase out for ‘essential uses’ when there is no acceptable substitute propellant,” Conko said.

Trivial Amounts of CFCs

Even if you assume they have an environmentally negative impact, the amount of CFCs used by inhalers are minimal, Conko notes.

“Even if you buy into the belief that CFCs should have been phased out for general uses in refrigeration and other industrial processes in order to spare the ozone layer, the amount of CFCs used in asthma inhalers was trivial in the overall context of things,” Conko said.

Inhaled epinephrine has been on the market since before 1962, when FDA’s regulatory authority was substantially increased. Conko notes the product’s market approval was essentially grandfathered in.

“It would have been difficult for FDA to get it off the market through normal channels,” Conko said.

Alternatives’ Quality a Concern

Some types of inhalers, particularly ones containing albuterol, have been able to switch from CFCs to hydrofluoroalkanes (HFAs). But HFAs are fairly expensive, so not every product has been switched.

“Over-the-counter Primatene Mist just would not have been able to sustain the far higher price necessary to justify the switch to HFAs,” Conko said. “In many other cases, prescription inhaler manufacturers have been able to reformulate their products from aerosolized liquids that require a propellant to fine powders that require no propellant.

“That’s why FDA thought it was okay to phase out the CFCs: because manufacturers have alternatives available. It’s just not clear that the alternatives are as good,” Conko added.

A Public Health Negative

Conko says inhaled powers work for the majority of patients, but there have been numerous reports from people with severe asthma saying the inhaled powders are less effective.

Thus, “The CFC phase-out is troubling,” Conko said. “And I would argue that FDA should have taken advantage of the essential use exemption to keep CFCs available for these uses by those with severe asthma.”

Those suffering from asthma may be hurt by these regulations because the rules take a product off the shelves, Conko notes.

“The one really good thing about over-the-counter epinephrine inhalers is that asthma sufferers who run out of their prescription medicines at night or over the weekend or while on vacation, when a doctor wasn’t available to re-fill their prescriptions, could always go to a pharmacy and buy a product like Primatene Mist right away with no prescription,” Conko said. “Now they won’t have that option.

“And that’s not trivial,” he explained. “Severe asthma sufferers can die from their condition. And, although epinephrine inhalers do carry some significant health risks, having them available on the market almost certainly improved overall public health.”

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/07/banning-epinephrine-inhalers-fda-making-it-harder-breathe

 

 

Nevada Develops Comprehensive Student Progress Tracking System

October 31, 2011

Sarah McIntosh

Nevada is implementing a new data system to track student progress over time and pinpoint the state’s best and worst teaching practices and teachers.

Measuring student academic growth through grades and classes differs from measuring proficiency in one subject at one point in time. State educators and lawmakers hope to use the Nevada Growth Model of Achievement (NGMA) to learn more about what educational practices work best and for what students, and to inform future policy decisions.

“In the last 50 years, Nevada has nearly tripled inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending while educational achievement has remained stagnant,” said Victor Joecks, communications director for the Nevada Policy Research Institute. “Instead of rewarding the best teachers and encouraging excellence, much of that extra money has been wasted on ineffective teachers. Properly implemented, the Nevada Growth Model offers schools a chance to increase student achievement without spending more, by identifying the best teachers and either improving their worst teachers or encouraging them to find a different profession.”

Growing Trend
Approximately ten states use a growth model of student assessment, and another “ten to fifteen” are considering doing so, said Damien Betebenner, a senior associate at the consulting group Center for Assessment who is helping develop the model. Clark County School District, the state’s largest, unanimously agreed to use the growth model this year.

“It’s best to build a comprehensive accounting system that doesn’t just look at a single factor but uses data to look at it comprehensively. You see these uses of data going in different directions in different states,” Betebenner said.

Measuring Student Growth
Assembly Bill 14, passed in 2009, required the Nevada Department of Education to create a statistical model for grades three to eight, measuring student growth year-over-year. NGMA will be integrated into the state’s current assessment system.

“Data can be a window and a mirror, where it is first a window to what is going on in the world around us,” Betebenner said. “Once we understand the data, it becomes a mirror with which we better understand what we are doing.”

Since fall 2009 the department has been developing its model, applying it to math and reading for elementary and middle school students, and determining growth targets. In fall 2011 the department began expanding the model to high school and PreK-2 and evaluating potential uses for the resulting information.

“Data can be used in good and in dumb ways, so the real test in the next ten years is understanding [it] and looking in different states to [see] how they are using the data,” Betebenner said.

Impacts on Teachers, Teaching
While students are tracked, teachers will feel the impact—Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) has appointed a Teachers and Leaders Council to apply the model to teacher evaluations. The council will submit recommendations by June 2012, and the State Board of Education must adopt related regulations by June 2013.

“Because teacher quality is the most important, school-controlled factor in student achievement, it is imperative that we know who our best teachers are,” Joecks said. “Done right, the Nevada Growth Model offers a fair and meaningful way to see which teachers are the best at helping their students learn.”

The Council may yet blunt the model’s potential for accurately evaluating by instituting low or nonexistent standards, Joecks warns.

Stats Just a Start
Sandoval said he will continue pursuing education reforms after several were blocked in the last legislative session. Nevada students failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress in math and reading on its own tests under No Child Left Behind in 2010-2011, and filed for a federal waiver of the law’s consequences.

“Ultimately, we need school choice, like opportunity scholarships, for every child, to allow parents to pick the best school for their child,” Joecks said. “Since every child has unique educational needs, the government shouldn’t try to force students into a one-size-fits-all school system. Giving parents a choice in where to send their kids to school would increase student achievement by getting a student into the best school for them and encouraging all schools to do their best to try and attract students.”

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/10/31/nevada-develops-comprehensive-student-progress-tracking-system

 

 

More Private Insurers Using Medicare Rates for Out-of-Network Payments

July 27, 2011

Sarah McIntosh

Patients may start having to pay more money out of pocket for health care if they do not pay attention to their insurers’ pricing policies.

As health costs have continued to rise, private insurance providers have looked closely at any areas where they can cut costs. One of the easiest avenues to lowering costs is for these insurers to lower their out-of-network payments, as Aetna began doing in 2009, shifting their payment rates to resemble those paid by Medicare.

For individuals in plans where payment rates are shifted in such a manner, the cost for medical services received by out-of-network providers may be much higher than in the past.

De Facto Nationalization

According to Devon Herrick, a senior fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis, the increased reliance on Medicare rates is further reducing the differences between private and public insurance payments and coverage.

“Private insurers have always looked to Medicare for guidance. If Medicare refuses to cover a given treatment, private insurers often refuse cover it,” Herrick said. “If other insurers follow suit, this practice could easily become commonplace. Medicare pays doctors 81 percent of what private insurers typically pay. Medicare fees are similar to the cost-sharing many insurers require for out-of-network providers.”

Increases Hospital Footprint

Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, says this shift is one reason why more doctors are taking jobs in large hospitals.

“If insurers do move in this direction, it will increase the importance of their networks of physicians, because that’s the only way patients know they will get the discounted price,” explains Matthews. “Of course, more and more doctors are taking jobs with hospitals.  That trend, if it continues, might diminish the practice, because physicians will likely fall under the hospital’s contract with the insurers.”

Matthews maintains this shift illustrates the growing role of Medicare’s price controls.

“The practice highlights the disparity between what physicians claim is their standard charge and the negotiated price for those in an insurer’s network.  Those differences can be steep,” Matthews said. “Insurers can make a reasonable case that paying Medicare rates plus, say 10 percent or 20 percent, is a fair reimbursement: ‘Isn’t that what the government pays?’ Many physicians will disagree.

“When the government imposes price controls on a large swath of a population, in this case patients, no one should be surprised if insurers begin using those lower prices as a basis for their own reimbursements,” Matthews explains.

Limiting Consumer Choice

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, says the decision insurers are making is logical given their options.

“Generally I don’t think there is anything wrong with insurers using Medicare prices to either set in-network or out-of-network rates, because it is not coercive when private insurance companies use the Medicare prices any more than it would be coercive if they used a bunch of numbers written in Egyptian hieroglyphics,” Cannon said.

Cannon says the ideal solution—more consumer choice—is unlikely to come into play.

“Ideally, consumers would be able to choose insurance plans based on how much they pay in-network providers and out-of-network providers, because that will determine how much access they have to each type of provider and how much out-of-pocket expose they will face,” Cannon said. “But instead of giving consumers that choice, what Obamacare is going to do is encourage state and federal governments to regulate these features of health plans even more.”

Growing Trend

Cannon expects more insurance companies to switch to this payment method in the future.

“They are switching to various measures to try to hold down premiums. I expect them to pay out of network providers less,” answers Cannon. “Is it a good policy? That depends on whether if you prefer access to out of network doctors or lower premiums. If you prefer lower premiums, it is a good policy; but if you want the out of network doctors and less out of pocket exposure, then it isn’t.”

Cannon says this move won’t help halt rising premium costs in the long term.

“Health insurance premiums are continuing to rise, even though Obamacare was supposed save us from that. This payment rate shift is how markets are supposed to respond to increasing costs—by taking steps that will guide patients to lower the cost of care, in this case in-network providers,” Cannon said. “Insurers are looking for ways to control premium increases. And they really want patients staying in the negotiated network of providers.  Adopting a Medicare-plus reimbursement will accomplish both goals.”

More Problems for Medicare

This shift could portend additional problems stemming from Medicare reimbursement rates down the road.

“Unfortunately, Medicare’s price controls are causing all sorts of problems within Medicare. While politicians will respond to that, we aren’t going to respond to the consumers who are captive in plans their employers offer them, which are even more heavily regulated under Obamacare,” Cannon said.

Matthews agrees.

“Doctors complain that Medicare doesn’t pay enough and are increasingly declining to take new Medicare patients. If insurers begin reflecting Medicare rates, even more doctors may look for an alternative, such as moving to a cash-only practice or retiring, exacerbating the growing difficulty in finding a physician,” Matthews said.

Sarah McIntosh, Esq. (mcintosh.sarah@gmail.com ) is a constitutional scholar writing from Lawrence, Kansas.

The original article can be found online at: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/07/27/more-private-insurers-using-medicare-rates-out-network-payments

 

Starbucks CEO Switches View on Obamacare’s Employer Mandate

Written By: Sarah McIntosh

Published In: Health Care News > June 2011

Publication date: 05/10/2011

Publisher: The Heartland Institute

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In the latest round of public opinion shifts among employers regarding President Obama’s health care law, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has done an about-face.  Originally a strong supporter of Obamacare, he has now expressed worry about how the employer mandate to provide insurance may harm businesses, including his own.

Burdensome Mandate

In an interview with The Seattle Times in March, Schultz responded to a question about health care costs saying that the cost for Starbucks in 2010 was roughly $250 million.

“We have faced double-digit increases for almost five consecutive years with no end in sight. So when I was invited to the White House prior to health care being reformed, I was very supportive of the president’s plan, primarily because I felt it was literally a fracturing of humanity for almost 50 million Americans not to have health insurance,” Schultz said.

While acknowledging the need for people to be insured, Schultz said the mandates within the law would pose a heavy burden.

“I think as the bill is currently written and if it was going to land in 2014 under the current guidelines, the pressure on small businesses, because of the mandate, is too great,” Schultz said.

Harms Businesses, Employees

Beverly Gossage, director of HSA Benefits Consulting, agrees the mandates will be harmful.

“The government will dictate the type of plans offered, usually raising the cost of the plans. An extra layer of accountability is added as the business must determine the ‘family’ incomes of its employees to calculate if they qualify for subsidies,” Gossage said.

“Businesses must interface with the federal government for reimbursement for these subsidies. Companies must make certain their plan offerings meet the ever-changing government guidelines. Companies like Starbucks with a revolving door of employees will have to hire extra HR staff to keep up with all the tracking and paperwork,” she added.

Supporters Turning Away

Christie Herrera, director of the Health and Human Services Task Force at the Washington, DC-based American Legislative Exchange Council, says Schultz is not alone in his concerns.

“Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is just the latest in a string of about-faces from health law supporters. What Howard Schultz is realizing now is something that we’ve known from the start: The so-called Affordable Care Act will cripple small business growth,” Herrera said.

“Businesses should be focused on employing our workforce and growing our economy, not worrying about mandates from the federal government,” Herrera added.

Advocating Portability

Gossage suggests a different course for Starbucks.

“For businesses like Starbucks who care about their employees’ access to health insurance, they could accomplish a win-win by doing the following: Lobby to repeal Obamacare, then increase their employees’ salaries by the amount paid for their health insurance benefit, less any tax deduction difference lost from going from benefit to salary,” Gossage said. “This allows the employees to have expendable cash to go to the open market and buy a private policy just like they do now for auto, home, and renter’s insurance.”

Gossage points out moving to a private policy would give employees a portable solution—if they leave their job at Starbucks, they don’t lose their insurance.

“Employees get more plan choices, more affordable options, fewer worries. They can’t be kicked off a plan because they get sick, and their rates can’t be raised due to their personal claims,” Gossage said. “Employers can drastically reduced HR staff, have no hassles with dealing with COBRA, carriers, TPAs, and claims issues, and will find it easier to budget the cost of hiring an employee while providing more competitive salaries.”

Employee Flexibility

Gossage says empowering these younger workers to enter the marketplace, will give them more flexibility while benefiting the employer’s bottom line.

“Employees today, particularly younger workers like Starbucks generally has, are more mobile and want a portable policy,” Gossage said. “They don’t like their employer or the government selecting their health insurance package any more than they want them to pick their cell phone package.”

Sarah McIntosh, Esq. (mcintosh.sarah@gmail.com) is a constitutional scholar writing from Lawrence, Kansas.

 

Vermont’s Sanders Renews Push for Federally Funded Day Care, Preschool

Written By: Sarah McIntosh

Published In: School Reform News

Publication date: 05/16/2011

Publisher: The Heartland Institute

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In the face of a $1.6 trillion federal budget deficit, a national debt topping $14 trillion, and with Congress debating a plan to cut spending by $6 billion over the next decade, one U.S. lawmaker is proposing a new program entitling parents to federally funded universal preschool and childcare.

The “Foundations for Success Act” by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would allow the subsidy to start when a child reaches just six weeks of age.

Sanders’ bill would begin as a pilot program in 10 states and eventually expand nationwide. States would compete for federal grant money and establish standards, in a process Sanders compares to President Obama’s “Race to the Top” program for K-12 schools.

“As we struggle to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, too many American children do not receive the high quality early care they need,” Sanders said in a statement. “The best way to both address our educational shortcomings and strengthen our economy over the long term is to invest in our children as early as we possibly can.”

The Congressional Budget Office has not estimated the cost of Sanders’ proposal. The federal government spent more than $7 billion in 2010 on the Head Start preschool program for at-risk and inner-city youth.

‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Criticized
The federal government should refrain from meddling in preschool, says Lisa Snell, director of education and child welfare studies at the Reason Foundation in California.

“The state already has an uneven track record with K-12 education,” she said. “Right now there are many different kinds of preschool programs, and parents have many choices. If the state offers free preschool, it [will be] difficult for private and nonprofit preschools to compete.”

While noting Sanders’ bill promotes ostensibly competitive grants, Snell said the government has a tendency to overshadow all other options.

“We risk diminishing parent choice and creating a one-size-fits-all public preschool,” she said.

Snell also warned Sanders’ bill would create a needless, redundant program.

“We should not be using scarce taxpayer dollars to start new federal preschool programs,” she said. “If this kind of preschool is a federal priority, we should use resources from existing preschool programs like Head Start rather than developing new government programs that duplicate programs that already exist.”

The United States has already made a multibillion-dollar yearly investment in early education at the federal, state, and local levels, Snell said. More than 75 percent of four year olds are already enrolled in public and private preschool programs, “and yet we have not seen large-scale academic improvements from this huge investment in early education.”

‘Flat Outcomes’
“On multiple measures from graduation rates to the performance of 17-year-olds on the National Assessment of Education Progress, we have seen flat outcomes and little improvement from this long-term investment,” Snell said.

Multiple studies of Head Start, which President Lyndon Johnson helped establish as part of his War on Poverty in 1965, have shown weak outcomes or no change at all despite the program spending more than $150 billion over four decades, Snell said. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study published last year found “few significant differences” in academic outcomes among first graders who participated in Head Start and those who did not.

The weight of research argues against Sanders’ bill, said John LaPlante, a fellow with the Minnesota Free Market Institute.

“If state-funded preschool has a weak record, then it’s a waste of money that could be better used elsewhere—paying teachers better, giving students scholarships for private schools, whatever,” he said.

Government-funded preschool, LaPlante said, is “an instance of government crossing the line between the political culture and the philanthropic one. It’s based on the assumption that government intervention can ameliorate the problems faced by children from less-than-ideal family situations.”

“Private, community-based efforts can make a difference, but even then there are limits to what we can do to fix human problems,” he said. “The problem is more serious once you bring in government, which involves politicians and bureaucracies.”

Appeals to Middle Class Parents
Preschool is a popular cause because voters see it as “‘doing something’ for children,” LaPlante said.

“There’s widespread agreement that kids are not getting the education they need in today’s world, and it’s easier to add something onto the K-12 industry than to make fundamental changes to it,” he said.

Making preschool a universal rather than targeted program is also an obviously political move, LaPlante added, because “any time you open a new spending stream to the middle class, you’re going to boost its political support.”

Several states such as Florida, Colorado, and Missouri have, however, made significant progress with reforms focused on elementary and secondary schools, LaPlante said.

“Florida has taken a multipronged approach,” he said. “They give letter grades to schools, which shames the poor-performing ones and praises the high-achieving ones. They’ve created some school choice programs, and they’ve made some changes in curriculum. They’ve also invigorated the teaching staff by creating one of the leading programs in the nation for alternative paths to getting a teaching certificate.”

As a result, LaPlante said, Florida has experienced impressive improvements in student achievement and significant gains in closing the achievement gap, especially among Hispanic students.

“This record suggests that we benefit when government focuses on reforming its own programs, and enlisting the power of private choice, rather than replacing parents,” he said.

Sarah McIntosh (mcintosh.sarah@gmail.com) is a constitutional scholar writing from Lawrence, Kansas.