Florida Today

A sorry spectacle
Substandard preschool could be status quo under the Legislature's terrible plan

The pre-K bill state legislators approved during their December special session was supposed to create the quality preschool experience voters intended when they passed a constitutional amendment in 2002.

Instead, it reads like a bad fairy tale.

And Gov. Jeb Bush, who vetoed a similarly unacceptable bill last summer, now says the package is hunky-dory as a first step toward free, voluntary pre-K for Florida's four-year olds.

He's wrong, and he knows it, and here's why:

Research -- and the blue-ribbon panel Bush himself called to make recommendations on pre-K -- clearly calls for degreed teachers with certification in early learning, as they are integral to running a quality program that prepares children for school success.

But the pre-K bill we got doesn't require degreed, certified teachers to be in classrooms next August when the programs open, or even for the next 10 years.

Legislators also cut short the recommended preschool day of up to six hours. Instead they approved only a three-hour day, too brief for young, easily distracted children to acquire the learning readiness skills they need.

Reality check, lawmakers:

A three-hour day won't work for many parents who can't cut out from their jobs to shuttle kids around. And, with no funds for transportation included in the bill, too many children from lower-income families won't have any way to get to the pre-K door.

The sorry list goes on:

Private providers of pre-K -- such as religious groups or day cares -- aren't required to follow any certain curriculum. That opens the door for children to be taught questionable lessons on the taxpayer dime.

The pre-K legislation also willfully ignores the prohibition in the Florida Constitution on turning taxpayer dollars over to religious groups.

That means faith-groups that sign on to take state funds to run pre-K classes could see themselves involved in lawsuits or subject to state regulation they may find unacceptable.

While the host of negative possibilities lurking in the shoddy pre-K bill are hypothetical at present, they're all too likely to happen.

So why did legislators expose kids, families, and potential providers to such a slew of dangers? And why is Bush, who prides himself on his supposed support of education, suddenly willing to settle for so little?

Because high quality pre-K would have been considerably more costly than the expected funding level of only $400 million for the program now in the works.

With an estimated 152,000 children participating in the pre-K programs this fall, that works out to a pittance per child per day.

And we'll likely get just that -- a pittance -- in academic results, a failure which may be used as justification to throw the babies out with the bath water and junk the entire program sometime in the future.

Which shows once again that talk from politicians about "quality education" in Florida is often high farce.

Too bad the joke is on a bunch of four-year-olds.