House OKs resolution against preschool funding
BOISE – State education officials should help equip parents to tutor their young children rather than offer state-funded preschool, according to a resolution the House passed Thursday.
Supporters of the nonbinding House Concurrent Resolution 24, said state preschool would make Idaho families too dependent on government support and usurp parents’ roles. Opponents argued state lawmakers are depriving low-income and dysfunctional families of a tool to raise children successfully.
Lawmakers voted 48-19 for the resolution, which asks the Idaho state Board of Education to publicize on its Web site the skills and knowledge children should have when they enter kindergarten to help parents prepare their kids.
Sponsors have said the resolution is partly a reaction to a bill narrowly passed by the Senate on Tuesday that lowers the school age from 5 to 4. That measure now goes to the House, where it will land in the House Education Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, an opponent of state-sponsored preschool.
On Monday, the House rejected a competing resolution, HCR 18, encouraging the state to develop early childhood learning standards and to distribute federal money to day-care providers based on their quality. Opponents made similar arguments about the importance of families, not government, in taking responsibility for young kids’ education.
The “primary responsibility to see that children are trained, educated and prepared for life rests squarely upon the shoulders of the parents who brought them into this world,” according to HCR 24.
“A truly well-rounded education includes instruction in ethics, morality, personal discipline and religion that can best be done in the home and should be encouraged in every environment in which our children are reared,” it states.
The de facto Idaho policy has been to stay out of early education, said resolution sponsor Steven Thayn, R-Emmett.
“Most kids do come to school well-prepared to learn, partially because we have a strong family structure in Idaho,” he said. “State-run programs have had a poor history of being successful.”
After a House committee recently killed a proposal by Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, to establish minimal health and safety standards for Idaho day-care providers with smaller facilities, critics of that measure argued that mothers should stay home with their children.
Nonini on Thursday questioned the need for “large government programs to teach such simple concepts” as colors and basic numbers – concepts kids must know to succeed in early grades.
“Many children just aren’t ready for school at age 5,” he said. “What’s it going to be next year, 3-year-olds?”
But Rep. Branden Durst, D-Boise, said the measure has a narrow view of families.
“The message I believe it sends: If you have children who can’t stay home with you, you’re doing the wrong thing as a parent,” he said.
Sayler voted against HCR 24, calling the resolution’s statement that families have a proven record of success an “overgeneralization.”
“This is a model here of an ideal family,” he said. “Parental responsibility is absolutely essential,” but there needs to be a role for other programs.
The resolution reflects the mentality of the “The Donna Reed Show” – a 1960s TV show about a nuclear family that deals with everyday problems – said Rep. Les Bock, D-Boise. Minimum-wage parents simply can’t live up to that fantasy, he said.
“If we pass it in this subtext, I think we need to be ashamed of ourselves,” he said.
Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Eagle, however, said his single mother raised him without government support by making sacrifices.
“We keep telling families that we will take care of you,” Labrador said. “We cannot take care of these families. Families need to take care of themselves.”