Leave our preschool program alone

By Steven Wikert

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Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, made a troubling statement recently on the Iowa Senate floor. He actually compared the content of Iowa's publicly run preschools to the indoctrination that happened in preschools run by the Nazis and the Soviets, and preschools run in China. Chelgren's shameful McCarthyite language describing a state school system, which, according to many sources, is consistently ranked at the top of the nation, may also be indicative of the attitude of Republicans and Gov. Terry Branstad. Iowa's public school systems are not broken!

I am a recently retired teacher who spent 20 years of my career teaching in the Waterloo Community Schools. Twelve of those years (1988-2000) were in a large school with as many as 90 percent at-risk students.

Our counselors would tell us that many homes of the students had very few if any books, paper or writing utensils. Needless to say, children who came from these homes were incredibly behind mentally and physically than other students who grew up with more educational stimulus around them.

Everyone at that school knew how desperately we needed a preschool. During the first Branstad administration (1983-1999), he opposed state funding for publicly run preschools. Today, Branstad is already proposing to cut funds by almost a half for public preschools and limit public school budgets severely. He is not a governor supportive of public education.

As early as 1962, the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study launched longitudinal research to measure the benefits to society of sending at-risk students to preschool. The study found that for every $1 spent on a public preschool education, the state and society saved more than $7 on welfare, crime, justice and other social welfare-run programs for these preschool participants over the course of their lives.

Other studies have found less return of public money, but all agree that publicly run preschools really give a “bang for our buck” in terms of tax-based dollars. It would be fiscally irresponsible for the state not to run public preschools.

The governor has slyly slipped in the longtime Republican goal toward privatizing schools with the introduction of a voucher system for Iowa's public preschools. In addition, all parents under the proposed plan will have to pay tuition to send their children to attend preschools (sliding scale, up to $1,300 per year). The proposal would provide vouchers for students to attend a private preschool if wanted.

Presently, 326 of Iowa's 359 school districts have free public preschool programs in which 39,000 4-year-olds participate. Iowa is considered a national leader in its provision for free public preschools.

One problem I imagine are “fly-by-night” private preschools appearing to take advantage of the available money that would appear from this proposed legislation. Private preschools might not have the professional staff and state-certified principal supervision seen at publicly run programs. They may never have fully certified staff with the proposed lowering of education requirements for preschool teachers.

If Branstad can put vouchers in the current public school preschool program, how long will it be before he tries to privatize the rest of public education by providing vouchers? It could mean the death of quality public education.

If our national goal is to improve public education, why are Branstad and Iowa Republicans trying to limit Iowa's public educational resources, likely causing layoffs? Several experts said that Iowa is financially stable. Iowa's school systems are the shining jewel of the state. We need to nurture them!

Iowa needs legislators, both Republican and Democrat, who have Iowa's best interest at heart, not legislators who do only what their political party directs them to do! Leave our state's excellent preschool program alone!

Steven Wikert of Cedar Falls is a retired teacher and the 1998 Recipient of Gold Star Award for Outstanding Teaching by the McElroy Foundation. Comments: smwikert@cfu.net