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New study: Tennessee pre-K program provides no educational benefit over control group

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This is the most thorough study that I have ever seen evaluating the effectiveness of pre-K programs. The study was done by researchers at Vanderbilt University.

The study was reported on by the well-respected but leftist Brookings Institute.

They write:

State investments in center-based school readiness programs for preschoolers (pre-K), whether targeted for poor children or universally implemented, have expanded more rapidly than evaluations of their effects. Given the current interest and continuing expansion of state funded pre-K, it is especially important to be clear about the nature of the available evidence for the effectiveness of such programs. Despite widespread claims about proven benefits from pre-K, there is actually strikingly little credible research about the effectiveness of public pre-K programs scaled for statewide implementation.

Like many states that became interested in scaling up a state funded pre-K program in the early 2000’s, voluntary pre-K (TNVPK) was introduced in Tennessee in 1996 as a way to provide academic enhancement to economically disadvantaged children. It expanded in 2005 to an $85 million-plus statewide investment serving 18,000 Tennessee income-eligible children in 935 classrooms across all 95 counties.

Launched in 2009, the TNVPK Effectiveness Study, a coordinated effort between Vanderbilt’s Peabody Research Institute and the Tennessee Department of Education, is a five-year evaluation study funded by the US Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences. It includes the first randomized control trial of a scaled up state funded pre-K program and the first well-controlled comparison group study of the effects of program participation as children progress through elementary school..

Policymakers and proponents often cite some of the famous early studies of pre-K programs that have shown long term benefits extending into adulthood for the participating children. But those were studies of especially complex programs that are unlike scaled-up public pre-K in many ways. The Vanderbilt study is the first rigorous controlled longitudinal study to be conducted on a large-scale state-funded pre-K program.

And here is a summary of the results:

Standard score results from pre-K through 3rd grade on a composite measure that averaged the six achievement subtests are presented from baseline forward in the graph below.

As is evident, pre-K and control children started the pre-K year at virtually identical levels. The TNVPK children were substantially ahead of the control group children at the end of the pre-K year (age 5 in the graph). By the end of kindergarten (age 6 in the graph), the control children had caught up to the TNVPK children, and there were no longer significant differences between them on any achievement measures. The same result was obtained at the end of first grade using two composite achievement measures (the second created with the addition of two more WJIII subtests appropriate for the later grades). In second grade, however, the groups began to diverge with the TNVPK children scoring lower than the control children on most of the measures. The differences were significant on both achievement composite measures and on the math subtests. Differences favoring the control persisted through the end of third grade.

In terms of behavioral effects, in the spring the first grade teachers reversed the fall kindergarten teacher ratings. First grade teachers rated the TNVPK children as less well prepared for school, having poorer work skills in the classrooms, and feeling more negative about school. It is notable that these ratings preceded the downward achievement trend we found for VPK children in second and third grades. The second and third grade teachers rated the behaviors and feelings of children in the two groups as the same; there was a small positive finding for peer relations favoring the TNVPK children by third grade teachers, which did not meet traditional levels of statistical significance.

Results graph:

TNVPK data: pre-K program is in red, baseline is in blue
TNVPK data: pre-K program is in red, baseline is in blue

We are already seeing that cheap daycare in high-tax, big government provinces like Quebec cost a lot, and produce negative results. And of course Hillary Clinton is a longstanding advocate of universal pre-K. As a Senator of New York, she introduced a universal pre-K plan that would cost $10 billion over 5 years. President Barack Obama’s own Preschool for All plan would cost $75 billion over 10 years. This Vanderbilt study should cause us to question whether the policies of the secular left, pushed largely because of emotions and ideology, are worth the tens of billions of dollars they want to take from us. And if you take tens of billions of dollars out of families, then families on the margin will have to give their children to the state to raise. And that includes Christian families, who would no longer be able to afford a stay-at-home mother.

Now, taking children away from parents so that their mothers can work is seen as a worthy goal by those on the secular left. First, communally raising the children is “good” because it removes inequalities between single mothers and traditional working-husband homes. Second, making it easier for women to “go fatherless” is “good” because fathers are not to be trusted to teach their children about morality and religion. That is best left to secular government workers. Third, mothers who choose to marry good providers pay less in taxes if they choose to stay home with their kids and not work. That is “bad” because the government wants more taxes, so they can spend it on vote-buying social programs. Fourth, children who form stable bonds with their parents are less likely to become dependent on the government, meaning their allegiance cannot be bought with government handouts. That is also “bad”. Fifth, it is also “bad” that children who grow up with stay-at-home mothers are more likely to develop empathy and morality, which gives them an independent standard by which to judge the government’s actions.

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Oklahoma attorney general signals resistance against DOJ transgender decree

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Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign
Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign

President Obama issued a Kingly decree to his subjects that all public schools in the land are to allow men to use women’s bathrooms, showers, change rooms, etc., because it is part of their rigorous public school education, and will prepare them to compete for jobs.

The Weekly Standard reports:

Late Friday afternoon Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt wrote a letter to the Justice and Education officials advising that “if you attempt to enforce this . . . letter on schools in the State of Oklahoma, we will vigorously defend the State’s interests.” Pruitt’s letter sets forth the grounds of defense: That without warrant the administration has redefined “sex” to mean “gender identity”; that it has forced this definition on parents, students, and communities because it has “deemed unjustifiable any discomfort that [transgender students] may express,” thus elevating “the status of transgender students over those who would define their sex based on biology and who would seek to have their definition honored in the most private of places”; and that it compels schools to enforce the new definition of sex “by conditioning receipt of federal funds on compliance” with the letter—”an ultimatum: take it or lose it,” which is not a “real choice” for many schools.

Pruitt concludes by saying that the administration’s actions are unlawful and “represent the most egregious administrative overreach to date. You have taken a public policy issue that must, by our constitutional design, be worked out in the laboratory of democracy and enforced it on all people. And you have done so through a misuse of the spending power.”

State attorneys general in the age of Obama have devised state coalitions to challenge federal overreach. Most notably, 26 states have joined in taking on the president’s executive action on immigration, now before the Supreme Court. Watch for a new coalition to be formed, in the event of actions taken to enforce the guidance letter.

Are you feeling sad? Then read the letter (PDF) from the Oklahoma attorney general.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott defies the tyrant
Texas Governor Greg Abbott defies the tyrant

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports on Texas’ response to Obama’s Kingly decree:

Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick said on May 13 the state will “not yield to blackmail” after the Obama administration announced a directive to public schools to give transgender students access to facilities, including bathrooms that match their chosen gender identity.

[…]Just hours after news outlets reported on the directive, which will be sent to all public schools across the country Friday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick offered a doomsday outlook.

“This will be the beginning of the end of the public school system as we know it,” he told NBC 5.

Patrick and other top Republicans in America’s largest conservative state, had spent the day listening to Gov. Greg Abbott’s vows to unite with the state of North Carolina as it wages a legal battle with the federal government over the Tar Heel state’s new law requiring people to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender on their birth certificate.

And just this week, Patrick called for the resignation of a Fort Worth schools superintendent after he proposed policies more inclusive of transgender students.

For those of you looking for a good state to move to, Oklahoma and Texas.

News

NC governor files suit against Obama administration

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Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign
Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign

NBC News reports:

North Carolina on Monday filed a lawsuit against the federal government in response to a letter from the Justice Department that gave the state until the end of the day to scrap a controversial law regarding access to public bathrooms or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

Gov. Pat McCrory was given until Monday to notify the Justice Department that he would not enforce House Bill No. 2, which the federal government says limits protections for LGBT people. The measure has drawn a firestorm of protest from across the country.

The suit filed against the federal government, which lists McCrory and other state officials as plaintiffs, called the Justice Department’s position on the law “baseless and blatant overreach.”

North Carolina’s suit said that Title VII, which the Department of Justice said House Bill No. 2 violates, doesn’t recognize transgender status as a protected class. “If the United States desires a new protected class under Title VII, it must seek such action by the United States Congress,” the suit said.

McCrory had already indicated that he wasn’t going to back down, saying on Sunday: “It’s the federal government being a bully. It’s making law.”

[…]House Speaker Tim Moore said, “That deadline will come and go. We don’t ever want to lose any money, but we’re not going to get bullied by the Obama administration to take action prior to Monday’s date. That’s not how this works.”

[…]In letters, federal civil rights enforcement attorneys focused on provisions requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to their biological sex.

[…]If the federal government yanked funding, the 17-campus UNC system could lose more than $1.4 billion in public money.

[…]Another $800 million in federally backed loans for students who attend the public universities also would be at risk if it’s found that enforcing the law violates Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on sex.

A federal lawsuit against the state is also possible, the Justice Department said.

In America, we have set up a system where the states are supposed to have jurisdiction over certain things that the federal government cannot control. We call this idea “federalism”. And it is a major reason why we are more prosperous than other nations. We believe in pushing decision-making down to the lowest level where a problem can be solved, because then it will be solved efficiently. But apparently, the socialists in the federal government – whose salaries are paid by our taxes – have decided that they know best and must force their views down onto the states. And what view are they forcing? They want private businesses in North Carolina to be forced to allow men into women’s bathrooms.

Do we not have other more pressing problems for the Obama administration to solve? Perhaps they can work on the IRS targeting of conservatives? Or perhaps they can work on the $20 trillion dollar debt, which has doubled since the Democrats took over the budget. Or perhaps they can back out of their deal to give Iran nuclear weapons? Or perhaps they can investigate their trafficking of assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels? Or perhaps they can fix the small problem of the labor force participation plunging to 62.8%? Or perhaps they can repeal Obamacare, which is set to raise health insurance premiums again by double digits in the coming year? Or perhaps they can repeal Dodd-Frank, which did nothing to fix the mortgage lending crisis that was caused in part by the two authors of the bill? Or perhaps they can privatize student loans and defuse the $1.3 trillion student loan bubble? Or perhaps they can get to work on modernizing our military – particularly our aging ballistic missiles submarines and our decrepit intercontinental ballistic missiles?

Or they could just focus on pushing a gay rights agenda down onto North Carolina. This is what you get when you elect an incompetent clown for a President, I guess.