VICTOR JOECKS: Government pre-K hurts children

If you wanted to improve education, you would abolish pre-K, not expand it.

In December, state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro said she wanted to create universal pre-K in Nevada. In his State of the State speech, Gov. Joe Lombardo praised state-funded pre-K. There’s now a budget fight over the issue. Democrats are upset that Lombardo wants to fund his pre-K slots with one-time money.

Lombardo’s pre-K plan is laying the groundwork for a tax increase. He’s on the same path as Kenny Guinn and Brian Sandoval. Both of those former Republican governors passed the at-the-time largest tax hike in Nevada history after winning re-election. Those dollars were supposedly going to improve education. That obviously didn’t happen.

His spokeswoman Elizabeth Ray disputes this. Lombardo “is not raising taxes — now or ever,” she said in a text.

I hope so.

The tax implications of this scheme are concerning enough, but don’t overlook this: Government pre-K is terrible.

Start here. Statewide, fewer than 41 percent of Nevada third graders are proficient in reading. In math, it’s 43.2 percent. It gets worse. Eighth-grade reading proficiency is under 38 percent. In math, it falls to 23.7 percent. Making kids spend more time in failing schools is a terrible idea.

Pre-K doesn’t produce lasting learning gains and can increase behavioral problems.

A 2012 federal study of Head Start found that the program produced modest learning gains “while children were in Head Start.” But “these early effects rapidly dissipated in elementary school, with only a single impact remaining at the end of third grade,” the authors wrote.

In a 2022 study, researchers from Vanderbilt University looked at results from Tennessee’s pre-K program.

“Data through sixth grade from state education records showed that the children randomly assigned to attend pre-K had lower state achievement test scores in third through sixth grades than control children, with the strongest negative effects in sixth grade,” the researchers wrote. “A negative effect was also found for disciplinary infractions, attendance and receipt of special education services.”

Forget the school-to-prison pipeline nonsense. Politicians should be worried about the pre-K-to-prison pipeline.

Pre-K advocates counter with their own studies, including the Perry Preschool Project, which started in 1962. Its researchers claim that $1 spent on pre-K will return more than $7 in savings. A few problems. That study included only children thought to be at risk of poor “intellectual functioning and eventual school failure.” The children had stay-at-home mothers who received in-home visits. The Perry study featured a tiny sample size, including fewer than 60 students in the treatment group. In contrast, the Head Start and Tennessee studies covered thousands of students.

You don’t even have to rely on out-of-state studies. Nevada has been funding some pre-K slots for more than two decades. It expanded pre-K access in 2015, yet improved achievement is nowhere to be found.

Lombardo came into office touting school choice and accountability in education. He’s delivered neither. This pre-K boondoggle will make things only worse.

Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.