“Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road.”  Obama said this in last Tuesday’s State of the Union address, arguing that the federal government should provide preschool education.  Among his multitudinous straw man arguments and big-government strategies, this is just another plan for more government control of our children at the taxpayers’ expense.

While early learning is a benefit to children, this doesn’t mean that earlier formal school will benefit them. Why should we subject toddlers to the same education system that is failing our kindergarten through twelfth graders?   American students are currently at the bottom when it comes to test scores in subjects like math and science.  A quarter of our kids are dropping out of high school, and many of those who do graduate can’t read at grade level.  Despite failing our children, the government’s constant answer is that the schools need more money.  Yet the more money they get, the worse our students do every year. This is just another pitch to gain influence over younger and younger children, continue to erode parental rights, and to gain more jobs for teachers and their unions who vote for big government.

The same problems we see for day-care kids vs. children who are cared for at home will pervade this new proposed school system.  Daycare kids are twelve times more likely to get the flu than those cared for at home.  Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that toddlers in daycare are more insecure, anxious, aggressive, hyperactive, defiant and disobedient.  What kind of teenagers and adults do they become with this as their foundation?  Just as the constant change in personnel negatively affects daycare children’s sense of trust and security, so will this be the case for younger children going through government run public school systems.

Licensed and “trained professionals” are already forming the value systems of our children as they have them for thousands of hours away from their parents’ care.  Obama will put children who are at a critical and vulnerable stage in their psychological and behavioral development under the care of people who are not accountable for any mistakes or false teaching.  It will not help children, poor or otherwise.  What it will do is create a division in the authority figures in children’s lives.

Estimates are that this will cost taxpayers $98 billion over ten years.  Families who are already struggling will bear the burden of even more money taken out of their pockets to be used not only to indoctrinate their children but also to undermine their parental guidance and authority.

What really sets children up for success at every stage of development is a strong nuclear family unit, not government-run education.  But strong families are less likely to teach their children victim-hood and government dependence.  That’s a problem for an administration that wants ever more government control over the lives of its citizens.