Pre-K bill scorns public schools

By PAMELA HASTEROK / VANTAGE POINT

Dec. 16, 2004

When Floridians voted to require the state to educate 4-year-olds, they didn't know they were approving a publicly financed program for private and religious schools.

They believed their mandate would apply to public schools, forcing them to offer instruction for the state's children a year earlier than they do now. They were wrong.

The bill tentatively passed by the Florida House Wednesday would create a prekindergarten system run almost exclusively by private and religious schools.

That's not all voters didn't know.

They didn't know that essentially anyone who isn't a convicted criminal could teach their children. Instructors need only the most minimal of training, similar to day care workers.

They didn't know their children could attend class for only three hours a day during a full school year.

They didn't know 18 children could be crammed into a classroom. In classes with more than 11 children, a second adult would be on hand, but that person wouldn't have to have any educational training.

While they didn't know that private and religious institutions would form the bulk of schools offering pre-K, they couldn't have imagined those schools could reject students they didn't want and teach 4-year-olds the school's religious beliefs.

Lawmakers justify the taxpayer financed private-school program because it's cheaper than offering pre-K in public schools, which pay higher salaries for college-educated teachers and offer more instruction per year. That's true enough. At least legislators admit they're cheaping out on the state's youngest children.

But it's specious for them to argue that private and religious schools are the only options because public schools don't have room for 4-year-olds. Public schools don't have the room because the state hasn't paid to build the new classrooms Florida's students need. To make sure public schools can't compete with private ones, legislators will prohibit public schools from offering pre-K if they don't comply with rules reducing class sizes. Private schools don't have to.

Even with the favored treatment, private and religious school leaders complained lawmakers are asking too much. They argued against instructors having to earn degrees. They argued against offering a non-religious education for 4-year-olds. They argued against admitting all children.

You can't blame them. They're private. They don't have to do what they don't want to do. Parents pay a pretty penny to send their children to schools where they receive the specialized attention and religious teachings of their choice. The schools choose which students they'll admit and which they won't by intelligence, religion and ability to pay. That's their right.

That's also what's wrong with a publicly financed private education for 4-year-olds. For parents who want their children to attend private or religious schools and who can afford to send them, great. But voters approved this amendment for all children.

That suggests a high quality public education, not a private one. Public schools don't discriminate. They don't turn away a child because he is a slow learner or of a different faith. Lawmakers designed a program that underwrites private and religious schools and the families who send their children there. Those families who don't, get the leavings, i.e., a slot at one of the very few public school programs.

Lawmakers are trampling on this citizens' mandate because it wasn't their idea and they don't want to pay for it. But Floridians voted for far more than this miserly effort.

Only one thing angers lawmakers more than being told what to do by voters and that's being told what to do by the courts.
That's next.