EDITORIAL: Pre-K not the way

The state’s education leaders are celebrating a federal grant that will allow five school districts to expand pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds. They’re sold on the idea that the earlier a child begins school, the better the child will fare in elementary grades and beyond. As reported last week by the Review-Journal’s Trevon Milliard, the state will receive $6.4 million as part of a four-year award that could exceed $43 million.

Nevada’s education system needs all the help it can get — for K-12. Gov. Brian Sandoval, state lawmakers and school officials should ask themselves whether it’s smart to start toward the full adoption of a new grade to a system already short on classroom space and operating funds, to say nothing of academic performance.

Make no mistake, that’s the aim of the grants. And Washington is following a tried-and-true blueprint to get there: dangle “free” federal dollars to get the government expansion started, then eventually dial back or completely withdraw federal support and stick local taxpayers with the bill for programs they couldn’t afford in the first place.

Perhaps such a course would be worth following if government-funded preschool had a track record of success. But it doesn’t. The federal government has been supporting preschool and pre-kindergarten for low-income children through Head Start at a cost of about $200 billion over nearly 50 years. Few government programs can match Head Start’s record of failure.

Head Start was created to get poor kids better prepared for kindergarten. The government’s pitch says such intervention locks in long-term achievement gains. Sound familiar?

But in December 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services released a study which found that Head Start does nothing to improve children’s academic outcomes or social and emotional skills, doesn’t help their health or home life, and in some cases leads to declines. The study tracked the development of kids who participated in Head Start from age 3 or 4 through the third grade and compared them against kids who didn’t participate in Head Start. Any gains resulting from Head Start were lost by the first grade. Among 3-year-old Head Start participants, Head Start negatively affected their math skills as they got older.

Nevada’s education leaders talk a lot these days about return on investment. Preschool and pre-kindergarten are incredibly expensive but lack bang for the buck. The state spends about $3.3 million on pre-kindergarten for 1,400 children. According to Mr. Milliard’s report, after four years, the federal grants will place just 810 Nevada children into pre-kindergarten programs in Clark, Washoe, Lyon, Churchill and Nye counties — at a total cost of more than $40 million. That’s more than four times as much spending on a per-student basis.

Nevada’s schools have far more urgent needs. Expanding full-day kindergarten to every school in the state, and reducing kindergarten class sizes to manageable levels, is necessary to meet literacy goals, but it will be plenty expensive. And in Clark County, there’s the added cost of creating the building space necessary to house all those new classes, whether through new school construction, new portables or converting schools to year-round schedules.

As with tax reform, the 2015 Legislature can’t overreach on education changes. Fix and improve what we already have. Make K-12 education better and more accountable, not bigger and less accountable. Expanding pre-kindergarten — regardless of whether Washington or the state pays for it — shouldn’t be a priority.

Expanded pre-kindergarten isn’t a head start. It’s more Head Start. And a head-scratcher.