lawrence o donnell: Detroit Free Press: Fight childhood poverty by fully funding preschool programs that don't work with money we don't have

From The Detroit Free Press: Fight childhood poverty by fully funding Great Start program

Rising poverty, coupled with the state's changing demographics, poses a daunting challenge for public policy and Michigan's future. Michigan's population is becoming more diverse, with whites expected to become the state's largest minority group in just over 30 years.

Of course, everything is due to racism, not on liberal Democratic hegemnic domination where there is poverty (read: Detroit):

Unless politicians and policymakers invest more in children's programs that alleviate racial inequities in education and health care, Michigan will become poorer, less educated and increasingly uncompetitive.

Michigan's poverty rate in 2010 -- 16.8% of state residents -- was the highest in at least four decades. The state's child poverty rate rose to 23.5%, including an unconscionable 53.6% in Detroit, according to the 2010 American Community Survey.

Uh - excuse me but just who has been running Detroit and its education system for the last 2 1/2 generations?

More than half of African-American children and 44% of Latino children under 5 live in poverty, compared to 19% for white children, according to a new report from Michigan's Children, "Michigan's Changing Demographics and the Future."

The #1 predictor of poverty isn't race of course. Rather, it's whether mom and dad are raising the kids. Around 80% of Detroit births are to single moms. It's kind of what happens when Democrats insisted on replacing the father with Big Government via welfare, with predictable results. The solution to the problem that they themselves created? More taxpayer money laundering (funneling taxpayer money to unionized teachers unions that always tithe back to the Democratic Party) via programs that are proven not to work:

...Early childhood and preschool programs are especially important, given that researchers can spot achievement gaps emerging in children as young as 9 months old. Children who don't read proficiently at the end of third grade are four times more likely to fail to graduate from high school on time.

...Michigan's Great Start Readiness Program, a full- or half-day preschool program for more than 47,000 at-risk 4-year-olds, improves school readiness, raises reading scores and boosts high school graduation rates.

The problem is the freep's continued ignorance that full-day pre-school programs don't work. The evidence has been out, but the Free Press editorial board is so wrapped up in their liberal echo chamber that the message isn't getting through. From almost exactly a year ago:Detroit Free Press: Hey - let's get our kids into pre-kindergarten programs that are PROVEN FAILURES! Science has been co-opted by the liberal movement. Data is unnecessary any more either through experimentation or through observation. Any data that contradicts liberal orthodoxy is fudged to show something that is the opposite of what the raw data has said. None-existent global warming, anyone? Check. Early childhood indoctrination? Big check. Even though such programs are proven failures, and costly ones at that. And statists never call such things "spending." It's always an investment. From Pajama's Media via Instapundit: ‘Head Start’: The $166 Billion Fed Ed Failure.

“Head Start,” the flagship pre-kindergarten program introduced in 1965, has been a $166 billion failure. That’s the upshot of a sophisticated multi-year study just released by the Department of Health and Human Services.

An earlier iteration of the study, published in 2005, had found a few modest improvements in the language skills of participating students while they were enrolled in the program. But by the end of the first grade, even those few effects have disappeared, according to the follow-up released this month. Out of 44 separate cognitive tests given to former Head Start students at the end of the first grade, only two showed even marginally significant effects. The other 42 showed no statistically significant effect at all.

In short, it was an utter waste of taxpayer money. Yet not only did the MSM not report this, they instead reported just the opposite (US DHHS: Pre-K Program is a $165 Billion flop. Detroit News and liberals: We have a fever and the only prescription is more pre-K!!!). The entirety of public schools have been co-opted by the liberal movement and basic skills like math and reading have been replaced with environmental propaganda, cultural sensitivity, self-exploration exercises, deviant alternative lifestyle studies, and singing devotional songs to dear leader:

Indoctrinating children at an even younger age will worsen the problem, not make it better. The NMU provost also threw this bait out without any justification whatsoever: "From a long-term perspective, high-quality early learning programs can save as much as $16 for every $1 invested because children who participate in these programs grow up to become better-educated and more productive workers." Those theoretical numbers are utterly contradicted by the Head Start experimental data - 45 years worth! As usual, data doesn't matter. Only that pie in the sky does.

Previously: