EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116 
Chaska, MN  55318 
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February 4, 2001
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BIG-GOVERNMENT-AS-PARENT-MYTH: 
School Readiness "Crisis"

By Dr. Karen Effrem, Pediatrician

The Department of Children of Children, Families, and Learning and all of the other proponents of the massive intrusion of government into the parental care of very young children keep spouting the statistic that “30% of Minnesota preschoolers do not have the basic skills necessary to succeed in kindergarten.” Given the contradictory nature of the statistics presented below, several questions must be asked. 1) How were the children tested? 2) What are these “basic skills”? 3) Is Minnesota that far out of step to contradict the rest of the nation’s preschoolers in the national and international comparisons cited?

Darcy Olson, entitlements policy analyst for the Cato Institute, said the following:

“Whether in preschools or with parents, a recent study of children entering kindergarten by the Department of Education found that kids are in top shape on factors kindergarten teachers say are the most important for school readiness--physical health, enthusiasm, and curiosity. In terms of concrete reading and math skills, nearly all, 94 percent, are proficient at recognizing numbers, shapes and counting to 10, and two in three know their ABCs.” (Olson, in Human Events, Sept 1, 2000)

Ms. Olson then goes on to describe how much better non-universally pre-schooled youngsters in America do in the early grades compared to their international counterparts:

“It's also in the early years when American students are most competitive internationally. Consider France, England, Denmark, Spain and Belgium where more than 90 percent of 4-year-olds attend public preschools. International tests show that by age 9, when the benefits of preschool should be most apparent, American children outscore nearly all of their universally pre-schooled peers on tests of reading, math, and science.”

She clearly states and the evidence shows that American students do not begin their decline in international performance until 8th grade and do not complete that descent to 19th out of 21 countries until the 12th grade. This information brings up two very important points. First, the failures of the public schools cannot be blamed on a supposed lack of preschool and early childhood education with all of its attendant costs and intrusion into private family life.

Secondly, the decline in international test scores that occurs after eight or twelve years of public schooling cries out for an examination of the radical reinvention of education. Programs like Goals 2000 and the Profile of Learning have resulted in a major emphasis on attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors, and job skills with declining ACT and SAT scores, instead of the broad based liberal arts education that has made the United States a world leader in so many areas.

Even if one believed that there was a crisis in term of school readiness in Minnesota, a newly released report by the Legislative Auditor revealed the following statement with regard to the effectiveness of these programs:

“Evaluations of the School Readiness Program have not provided definitive evidence of its effects. The department has sometimes declared that School Readiness has a positive impact without acknowledging other possible explanations for the results of its evaluations.”

Children are not “mere creatures of the state” or a part of Hillary Clinton’s “village.” Parents must have the freedom and be responsible enough to raise them without government interference and tracking from birth. There is no evidence of a school readiness crisis, but there is plenty of evidence of over-taxation and government interference in the lives of families with children. Instead of expanding wasteful government spending, the legislature needs to empower parents to raise their own children by lowering the tax burden and decreasing monitoring.

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