Education Liberty Watch Statement on Questionable Decision to Take QRS Statewide

“We are deeply disappointed that Governor Dayton has joined with liberal allies unwilling to accept legislative defeat.  It is deeply disturbing that after a stinging legislative rebuke, this administration would resort to this sort of unjustified expenditure of public funds to qualify for one-time federal money from a basically bankrupt federal government that has had its credit rating downgraded for the first time in nearly 100 years.  Given the federal government’s precarious fiscal situation, the availability of these funds is extremely doubtful.

We also find it sadly  ironic that proponents of this bad idea have decried the use of one-time education shift and tobacco bonds to balance the state budget, but are perfectly happy to try to sidestep the legislature in order to gain the one time federal Race to the Top funds and impose their big-government schemes on the private childcare businesses and young children.  This program will subject Minnesota to increased federal control and more unfunded mandates that have engendered much bipartisan opposition with other federal programs like No Child Left Behind.  It is also ironic that legislators that opposed Race tot he Top for K-12 are now fine with federal government control of preschool.

We strongly question this idea of established statutory authority to make this move.  If there was proper authority to do this, then why did nanny state proponents spend an entire session trying to implement this flawed, expensive and bureaucratic system?

The public and policy makers must be aware of the following disturbing facts regarding quality rating systems and preschool in general:

• Only 14% of eligible providers in the pilot areas volunteered to be rated with home providers being extremely wary of the many bureaucratic hurdles imposed on them by this system
• Only 25% of parents with children in rated programs even knew about Parent Aware, meaning that at least 75% of parents in the program are not using the system to make their childcare decisions
• Two thirds of the programs received an automatic free pass of a four star rating just because they are large centers or public programs, like Head Start, while small private programs are subjected to the full rating process, described as arbitrary by some providers.
• The evaluators of Parent Aware said, “The design does not permit us to determine if Parent Aware causes outcomes for programs, parents, or children. “
• It has taken $20 million of private funds and five years to get these poor results in four pilot areas, so it would likely cost many times more than that in public dollars and certainly much more than the projected $2 million of public funds to take Parent Aware statewide.  This does not even include the cost to maintain this government heavy system.
• Poor children that participate in early childhood programs often either retain no academic benefit or a decline in test scores, as well as emotional and behavioral problems, in the elementary school years.

Education Liberty Watch will continue to work with the citizens of Minnesota and their elected representatives against this expansion of government control and regulation of private childcare and preschool programs, imposition of a government preschool curriculum on our state’s youngest children, and out of control state and federal spending. ”

Contact:

Karen R. Effrem, MD

952-361-4931