Has Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton talked to Rob Reiner lately?  Clinton has just proposed a $10 billion federal version of actor/director Reiner’s ill-fated universal preschool initiative that was trounced 61% to 39% by blue-state California voters last year.   Worse, Clinton defends her proposal by using the same discredited arguments that were made by Reiner and his allies.

Clinton’s plan would send federal dollars to states that make one year of preschool universally available for all four-year-olds.  A la the Reiner scheme, preschool teachers funded by Clinton’s program would need at least a bachelor’s degree and specialization in early childhood education.  Also, taking a page from Reiner’s speechmaking book, Clinton claimed that “quality” preschool programs would more than pay for themselves because children will be less likely to drop out of school, enter special education programs, become welfare recipients, and display behavioral problems.  She also said that for every dollar spent on preschool, society received seven dollars in benefits.  Yet, all these claims were shot to pieces during the debate over Reiner’s losing initiative.

Pacific Research Institute’s 2006 briefing booklet No Magic Bullet: Top Ten Myths about the Benefits of Government-Run Preschool examines and debunks each of the claims now being made by Clinton.  For example, the studies used to justify requiring bachelor’s degrees for preschool teachers are based on flawed studies that have been exposed by UC Berkeley researchers who conclude: “Claims that a bachelor’s degree further advances childhood development simply cannot be substantiated by studies conducted to date.”

Even more important, the preschool programs that have benefited low-income children were either very small programs, multi-year programs, or programs with provisions not covered by the Reiner-type programs envisioned by Clinton.  Further, there is simply no long-term evidence that a universal preschool program will benefit middle-class children.  One of the few longitudinal studies done to date on non-poor children found that non-poor children attending preschool were no better off in terms of high school or college completion, earnings, or criminal justice system involvement than those who didn’t attend preschool.  Recently, as noted by UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller, three research teams have found few lasting benefits of preschool for middle-class children.  Because of these gaping methodological holes, Clinton’s claims of huge cost-benefit payoffs are simply bogus.

New research also contradicts Clinton’s claim that preschool alleviates behavioral problems.  A 2005 Stanford-UC Berkeley study found that “attendance in preschool centers, even for short periods of time each week, hinders the rate at which young children develop social skills and display the motivation to engage in classroom tasks, as reported by kindergarten teachers.”  The study observed that “[t]his slowing of typical rates of social-emotional growth is particularly strong for black children and for children from the poorest families.”

As PRI’s No Magic Bullet concluded, “Given the empirical holes that exist in the evidence for universal preschool, it would seem premature in the extreme to entrench an untested expensive program, run by poorly performing government bureaucracies.” California voters agreed with this assessment and voted down Reiner’s initiative.  Hillary Clinton may be trotting out the warm fuzzy preschool rhetoric now, but the reality is that voters are far from convinced that it is a good idea to entrust very young children to the same government that has made such a mess of K-12 education.