Texas Legislative ALERT

Texas Legislative Watch
ACTION ALERT – WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Texas Politicians to Expand Free Daycare
….Trojan Horse for Universal Pre-K

Excerpt from "No Wonder America Is Losing Its Competitive Edge"            

An overwhelming number of Texans have indicated they are highly dissatisfied with public education.

Yet the 84^th Legislature, at the lead of Governor Abbott and business leaders, is pulling out all stops to pass legislation that will expand government run education and create free daycare for thousands of illegal immigrant minors. 

Governor Abbott has made early education his top emergency legislative priority.   Translated:  all related legislation is being fast-tracked through the legislature ahead of bill-passing deadlines.

Those currently eligible for Texas public pre-K Texas are low income, disadvantaged, and military children. 

The U.S. Department of Education has handed down the edict that every child, regardless of immigration status, is “entitled” to a free public school education.   Thus, thousands of unaccompanied minors who have crossed the Texas border in recent months will be eligible for not only K-12, but also pre-K. 

Texas politicians of both parties want to expand pre-K from a half-day to a full-day at a cost of $7,300 per child per year……. 

Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research in a Dallas Morning News article said, “… low-income families in particular need full-day programs; otherwise, they are less likely to participate because work schedules often don’t allow time to pick up children earlier in the day.”

The bottom line is that full-day pre-K will provide free government daycare for the thousands of illegal alien children who are flooding our Texas cities. 

The federal government does not permit any questioning about whether the children are citizens, only that they must receive free schooling and access to entitlements…… 

Daycare advocates argue that being held back in kindergarten is harmful for the child’s future success. 

However, many of the world’s top-performing high-school students do not begin formal schooling until age six or seven.  One of the best known examples is that of Finland which does not allow a child to begin formal schooling until age seven.  Kindergarten is not mandatory and does not begin until age six. Yet Finland’s students are among the highest performing in the world -- U.S. students are near the bottom…. 

Play-based kindergartens, and now even preschools, have been replaced largely by daily drilling literacy and math skills into young children and giving or preparing for tests. 

Researchers who have studied the effects of the daily drilling of literacy and math skills to make young children develop faster have found both creativity and curiosity to be negatively affected.  

When Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William and Mary analyzed nearly 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults, she found that creativity scores had risen steadily until 1990.  From that point on, creativity scores have continued to fall.  Kim said, “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant.” The decline in the scores of younger children in America -- from K-6 -- is the “most serious.” 

The stifling of creativity and curiosity in young children makes teaching advanced math and science later more difficult.  Already this has had an impact, for now we are importing highly skilled talent since too many of our students are not academically prepared for the business world.

Because our students were encouraged in the past to be creative, great American minds have brought forth inventions that have benefited millions throughout the world. 

With students now being taught collectivism,  instead of individualism, through the Progressive teaching methods of American public education, we are seeing the killing of the great entrepreneurial spirit that has been the hallmark of America.

The 1960s HighScope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study (PCCS) for at-risk three- and four-year-old children from low-income families used three different preschool classes.  Children learned either through play or through direct instruction.  By age 23, at the conclusion of the study, the direct instruction students showed serious issues in overall development.

• 47% had needed special education as compared with 6% of the others;
• 34% had been arrested for a felony offense as compared with 9% of the others;
• 27% had been suspended from work as compared with 0% of the others;
• 0% had married and were living with spouses while 31% of the others had; and
• 11% had done volunteer work as compared with 43% of the others.

Why are they ignoring the voices of the people about expanding a failed government monopoly?

Why are they saddling Texans with more spending?

Why is government pre-K such a high priority for Governor Abbott, business leaders, and politicians?

Is it because they believe that government can do a better job of rearing young children? 

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PLEASE HELP DEFEAT THESE BILLS:  

House Public Education Committee  (view committee members)

HB 1100  (Gold standard full-day pre-K - $412 million) by Rep. Eric Johnson:  Public Education Committee – in committee

HB 4 – (Implement high quality pre-K - $130 million) by Rep. Dan Huberty:  Public Education Committee – All committee members voted it out of committee for vote by full House.  

HB124, HB186  (Add more pre-K programs), HB 391, HB 424 (Full day pre-K), HB 296 (Caps class size; pupil/teacher ratios): Public Education Committee – in committee  

Senate Education Committee (view committee members) 

SB 23  (Add more pre-K programs + full day), SB 72  (Add more pre-K programs), SB 73  (Caps class size):  Education Committee – in committee

SB 1752  (Full day pre-K; caps size class; pupil/teacher ratios; develop curriculum standards; early childhood teacher certification from college of education) by Sen. Royce West:  Education Committee - in committee  

Please help defeat these bills by taking the following action steps: 

1. Please contact your state representative and senator and ask for their support to defeat these bills.  To find your elected officials, click here. 

2. Please call the committee members (see committee member links above) and ask them to vote NO on these bills. If you know individuals who live in the committee members’ districts, please ask them to call as well. 

3. If there are hearings, please consider attending to help us defeat the bills. To find out when a hearing is scheduled, click here. 

http://drcarolehhaynes.com