The Meathead Initiative
Probably the worst California initiative since Big Green, Rob Reiner's "free" preschool initiative (Prop 82) simply emanates harm in every direction. It is the ballot equivalent of the crack addict who destroys your dashboard to get a radio he exchanges for a $10 hit. Except in this case the hit is bunk.
What the initiative does:
- Increases the maximum income tax rate by more than a percent on high earners. This might not seem so bad until you realize that there is no cap gains treatment in California and tax hikes at the high end increase the likelihood that large one-time or elective cap gains will be exercised during a year of exile to, say, Washington State, leaving California with nothing. This happens enough now.
- Guarantees a year of half-day preschool to every four-year-old, starting in 2012 or so, regardless of family income. So, don't expect this for your kid. Nor should you think of this as an anti-poverty program, no matter how Reiner spins it. It will cost about $50,000 for each poor kid in preschool, given a child poverty rate of 10%.
- For the first 5 years or so, all the money is to be spent on setup. Building neighborhood preschools (no doubt through eminent domain) to replace the private preschools we already have. Developing programs and other "consultant" stuff; just the thing we need more of. No doubt to the same high ethical standards Rob Reiner brought to First 5 -- which has yet to spend meaningful money on whatever it was that his last initiative promised back in the 90's. Now we know what "First 5" really means!
- It requires that all preschools under this program be run by the state Department of Education and/or local school districts. You know, the folks who have done such a bang-up job with K-12. Especially in those areas with poor children.
- It requires that all preschool teachers have college degrees and be certified, at a time when K-12 teaching jobs are going unfilled. So, say goodbye to all of those private preschool teachers; they aren't qualified even if they've been doing this for 20 years.
- To the degree that people prefer free preschools to good preschools, it will devastate the private preschool business. Instead of thriving diversity and competition for students, we have one more year of one-size-fits-all, with the attendant screaming over what will be taught.
- It won't do any good in the long run. For kids of average means (e.g. literate parents), any advantage due to preschooling evaporates by grade 3 -- no doubt due to the mind-numbing mediocrity of public elementary schools. It's unknown whether public preschools run by the NEA will do even that much good.
- None of the tax increase will go toward bring down the deficit, or funding real schools, or paying for other needed programs such as roads and subways. You want to do that, you need to raise taxes even further -- something some Prop 82 backers are quite ready to do.
But don't take my nutbar right-wing word for it. Go
ask ultraliberal John Burton what he thinks. Even the
LA Times is against Prop 82.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at April 14, 2006 04:56 PM