Senate panel takes baby steps
BOISE – From law enforcement to academia to business, there’s a call for more investment in early childhood education in order to save money in the long run on such things as prisons and school remedial programs.
A state Senate task force heard a full day of presentations with that message this week but moved no closer to finding a solution. The reason being that the Legislature’s other house, the House of Representatives, didn’t participate.
Sen. Tom Gannon, R-Buhl, said, “I was told that the official position of the House leadership was that if the Senate wants to hold meetings on this, let ‘em hold them.”
The rift between the House and Senate underscores a political impasse that’s halted any movement on the issue in Idaho, even as other states have been turning increasing attention to early childhood education. Thirty-nine states have state-funded preschool programs, and several more took steps this year to add them. Idaho, on the other hand, cut several of its early-childhood programs this year because of Gov. Butch Otter’s concerns about how they were funded. Several bills regarding early education, preschool standards and day-care licensing were proposed, but none passed.
Meanwhile, Idaho has roughly 4,000 child care programs operating, more than half aren’t licensed, and only 28 – less than 1 percent – are accredited. At the same time, growing numbers of young children either have both parents working or live in single-parent families.
Gannon, who chairs a Senate task force that includes lawmakers of both parties along with representatives of business, Idaho Head Start and parents, said: “I was terribly disappointed when the House decided not to participate. If they participated, they would be here and they could help us start seeing where we would be able to converge.”
Rep. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, is chairing a House-only task force on the family. Thayn addressed the Senate task force and told the group that if Idaho invests any money into pre-kindergarten education programs, it should pay the same amount per child to parents who successfully raise their own young children.
“If they did the work, they should have access to the money,” Thayn told the senators. “If we’re going to spend money on early childhood education, the parents should have access to it just as the teachers have access to it.”
Questioned by Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, Thayn said he would oppose a pre-K program in his local public schools even if two-thirds of the people in his legislative district wanted it.
“Every time we start a program that costs money, we’re actually forcing more mothers out of the home,” Thayn said.
Thayn told senators that state-operated pre-K programs could undermine Idaho parents’ sense of responsibility for their own kids. “It should be encouraged to be in the home – that is the best provider,” he said.
The senators had just heard the Idaho Criminal Justice Commission report that pre-K education offers the best long-term solution for reducing Idaho’s prison population, based on studies by the Federal Reserve Bank.
They had heard three professors of early childhood development from Brigham Young University-Idaho report that quality early education makes a huge difference in overall learning success. “The data and the theory all would suggest that investment early is going to have a payoff,” Professor Tom Rane told the senators. “I would channel as much resources toward pre-K as the state is going to give.”
They had heard a Boise State University expert present the latest brain research, showing that key aspects of human brain development are dependent on a child’s earliest experiences, from birth to 6 years of age.
Schroeder said, “Seems like I’ve spent a career on this issue. We’re back where we were years ago, with the exception that we have more research and more data telling us the benefits of pre-K.”
He added, “We have some people who don’t want to participate and want to force their belief system on the rest of us, in this case, to not have a pre-K program. … That upsets me.”
Schroeder said Thayn’s pay-the-parents concept didn’t seem logical to him. “What do you do with a single mom that’s working?” he asked. “Are you going to force her to stay home and teach her kids? If so, it’s the biggest welfare bill ever.”
Thayn said afterward that he has no specific legislative proposal in mind. “Right now, I’m using it more as a metaphorical example. I was talking philosophical,” he said. But, he said, “I think it does have application in certain areas.”
Sen. Stan Bastian, R-Eagle, said he thought Thayn’s ideas about the importance of the role of parents could be part of the solution in Idaho. He pointed to a successful program in Wilder that’s using federal migrant funds to help both preschool children and their parents, nearly all of whom are just learning to speak English, have a more successful year when the kids reach kindergarten. “It has done wonders for the reading scores,” he said. “We’re not only dealing with children, but we’re dealing with parents.”
Former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Byron Johnson told the senators that years ago he encouraged then-gubernatorial candidate Cecil Andrus to take on public kindergarten as a cause. Andrus did so, and kindergarten finally was offered in Idaho schools after a hard-fought five-year political battle.
Johnson said the same kind of fight is ahead to offer more early learning in Idaho schools and suggested legislation to establish a commission of parents, lawmakers and others to examine how parents and communities can better provide for early education in Idaho, and report back to lawmakers in a year. Given “political realities,” Johnson said, “In my view this is the only thing that has a chance to fly in this next legislative session.”
In last year’s legislative session, the Senate passed legislation to allow Idaho school districts to offer programs for 4-year-olds but not use any state general funds for them. The measure, sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators and representatives, died in the House.
The House passed a resolution written by Thayn encouraging the state to pursue programs to help parents appropriately educate their young children. The measure died in the Senate.
Rep. Branden Durst, D-Boise, who serves on Thayn’s task force on the family, said, “It’s a philosophical difference – it’s saying government can’t have a solution for the problem. The Senate and some of us on the House side think it can work both ways – government may not be the answer, but it can be part of the answer.”