SACRAMENTO, CA --"It is an enormous idea, an important idea, and it is going to happen," said Senator Barbara Boxer here last week, speaking of her "Early Education Act of 1999," a $300-million plan for taxpayer-funded pre-school, beginning at age three.

State education superintendent Delaine Eastin, who appeared with her, has an even bolder idea: Pre-school for three-year-olds at an annual cost of $5 billion.

These would be modeled on French colecoles maternelles, literally "maternal schools." Attendance at such schools is voluntary but nearly all three- to six-year-olds attend, along with 34.9 percent of two-year-olds. Parents do not get to select which maternal school their children attend. But one should not pluck two-year-olds out of their homes simply because other nations do it, particularly France, with it’s high unemployment and stagnant economy.

Nanny-state backers also appeal to articles in journals such as Education Week touting a "sensitive" or "critical" period in brain development, lasting until a child is around 10, during which children learn faster, easier, and with more meaning than at any other time in their lives. This critical period for young children, however, originates not in the scientific literature but the popular press and advocacy documents. Actual neuroscientists have only speculated about the concept, and presenting speculation as fact is dangerous, especially when children are involved. Even if there were a special learning period, it is dubious that state pre-schools would best enable children to take advantage of it.

Three-year-olds quite properly belong with their parents, who care for them more than any state employee. But the interests of children have long taken a back seat to those for whom politics is paramount.

Boxer opposes the Republican-backed tax cuts and predicts a presidential veto. Federal pre-school is what she wants to do with the money, instead of returning it to taxpayers. The plan turns back the clock to the days of spending for the sake of spending. And "federal" money, it should be remembered, originates in California. It’s our money she wants to spend.

Superintendent Eastin, a former Democratic assemblywoman, postures as an advocate of accountability and has made life difficult for charter schools, one of the few truly promising reforms on the current scene. But on her watch, test scores have scarcely improved and California still languishes near the bottom.

The superintendent would be better occupied trying to make the current system perform, with more autonomy, tougher standards, and no social promotion. Making the system take on new tasks such as health clinics, parenting courses, and domestic violence prevention courses--all ideas in bills on the current legislative agenda--will only detract from needed reforms.

The expenditure of $5 billion on pre-school for three-year-olds is a massive form of child abuse justified by politics. The pre-schools would be staffed with state employees, thousands of them. Teacher unions are the Democratic Party’s biggest funders, and send more delegates to the Democratic convention than the state of California. Delaine Eastin has long been the candidate of choice for the California Teachers
Association.

While claiming to benefit children, the Eastin and Boxer plans would harm children, waste billions, and serve partisan interests. Next they will be plucking infants from their cradles.

-- K. Lloyd Billingsley