When a presidential candidate decries education cuts he’s probably not serious about education. He’s serious about winning elections.
The Obama campaign didn’t waste time before attacking Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., on education, stating in its response to Ryan’s being named Mitt Romney’s running mate that Ryan proposed “deep cuts in education from Head Start to college aid.” The campaign hit education even before Medicare, illustrating just how much they must think voters will recoil at any diminution of education spending.
“But hold on,” you’re thinking, “isn’t education vital? And if so, shouldn’t we invest as much as possible?”
Those are reasonable questions for people with jobs, families, and not a whole lot of time to research education policy. After all, with most things, if you pay more you get something better.
But President Obama employs lots of people who assess education policy, and he must know what the statistics reveal: Washington spends huge amounts in the name of education but gets almost no educational improvement in return.
Begin with Head Start, a nearly $8 billion program that’s politically untouchable, not only because it deals with education, but it’s for preschool kids. It’s almost tailor-made for demagoguery, with anyone who’d dare trim — much less eliminate — the program practically begging to be declared a rotten so-and-so who hates even the littlest of children.
But the fact is there’s no meaningful evidence the program does any good. In fact, the most recent federal evaluation found that Head Start produces almost no lasting cognitive benefits, and its few lasting social-emotional effects include negative ones. Only the people employed by Head Start money — and the politicians who appear to “care” — are really benefiting.
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