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Palm Beach Post

Get ready for pre-K scandals
By Jac VerSteeg, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Florida's lawmakers have demonstrated touching faith in their fellow human beings.

Last week, the Legislature voted to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the voter-mandated universal pre-kindergarten program that will serve as many as 150,000 4-year-olds beginning in August. To meet the demand, most of the kids will have to enroll in private day care, with the state paying for three hours of instruction every day. This is the touching part: Even with all that money at stake, the Legislature didn't think it was necessary to write a bunch of pesky rules requiring financial and academic accountability.

The leap of faith is even more touching because poorly monitored voucher programs repeatedly have come back to bite the Legislature. One of the most recent was just in June, when Polk County authorities arrested seven people connected with Faith Christian Academy in Bartow and charged them with plundering $200,000 from two state voucher programs and the federal school lunch program.

Betty Mitchell, Faith Christian's principal, allegedly used $53,000 to buy herself a Hummer. Others are accused of using voucher money to pay for entertainment tickets, clothing and satellite TV. Previously, a businessman from Ocala, James K. Isenhour, was charged with stealing $268,000 from a voucher program. And there were many other examples, most of them uncovered by Post reporters.

Yet by golly, lawmakers are determined to see only the best in people. Rep. Dudley Goodlette, R-Naples, rebuked critics of the new pre-K program's lax oversight. "You suggest there is going to be rampant fraud in the program," he said, "and that does a disservice to the providers."

For one thing, many of the pre-K providers will be Christian churches. Can anybody name even a single Christian church official who stole money or misled the public? Well, except for that principal I mentioned above. Or Jim Bakker. Or Jimmy Swaggart. Or Oral Roberts. Or Henry J. Lyons, the St. Petersburg minister who served five years for stealing tons of money from the National Baptist Convention. Or John Cornelius, Thomas O'Brien, Patrick O'Shea and Richard Arko — just some of the priests featured in October in a Seattle Times investigation which found that many priests accused of abuse also were accused of stealing from the church.

OK, so maybe there are exceptions. But why should the state worry about those? Surely, lawmakers are justified in believing that financial scandals couldn't possibly taint Florida's pre-K program. Join them in thinking of the dearth of financial and academic standards as an invitation to entrepreneurial creativity. In that spirit, here are just some of the creative pre-K programs Floridians might look forward to:

Three-Card Montessori: Helps 4-year-olds develop hand-eye coordination and observational skills — at their own pace, of course.
Enrunts: Little ones learn to corner the market on essential commodities such as juice boxes, nap mats, SuperSour Gummies and hydroelectric power. Children learn character lessons through fun stories such as Who's Stuck With Stock? and Kenny's Bad Crash.
Pretrial Preschool: Through innovative play techniques, children are introduced to the concepts of negotiation, compromise and ratting out accomplices, skills they're sure to need later in life.
Halliburton Etiquette Academy: No-bib contracts.
Ponzi Petites: Students learn their basic shapes. Special emphasis on the pyramid.
United Nappies: School features a multicultural student body to help youngsters understand different world viewpoints. Kiddies will learn about sanctions, rewards and kickbacks through the Baby Oil For Food program.
PTL Clubhouse: Youngsters will supplement tuition through direct, on-air appeals and learn to handle donations in a way that takes full advantage of the Christian proclivity for forgiveness. In this pre-K program, your tyke's tears are an asset.
Gifted Grifters: Great news. The school's owner has won the lottery and will share the jackpot with enrolled families. Due to a slight immigration misunderstanding, the owner is looking for a parent to cash the lottery ticket for him. Parent just will need to put up a little earnest money. How do you know you can trust the owner with your cash? Well, the Legislature does.