Ever since Bill de Blasio made “universal pre-K” his top priority, all the focus has been on the financing. That’s because the mayor-elect proposes to raise the $532 million he needs by hiking taxes on those with incomes of more than $500,000.
The tax issue certainly is important. But it seems to have distracted all attention from an even more pertinent question: Is the pre-K plan worth it?
Certainly universal pre-K enjoys a hallowed place in the pantheon of liberal pieties. President Obama, for example, is calling for a federal initiative on the same.
But the Web site set up to promote Mayor-elect Bill’s initiative is heavy on the warm and fuzzies — footage of adorable children happily beavering away at schools — but very short on backup for the claim universal pre-K “reduces income inequality and increases social mobility.”
In fact, the evidence runs the other way. About a year ago, the Department of Health and Human Services released a study on Head Start, a similar initiative to help children from low-income families by intervening early in their lives. The conclusion it reached echoed findings from earlier studies: Despite the $8 billion a year we now spend on it, any gains made seem to disappear after a few years.
The danger for New Yorkers should be obvious. Without clear standards for what pre-K is supposed to accomplish — and equally clear measures to make sure it does — the city could easily end up with the worst of all worlds: higher taxes for another spending program that essentially adds up to little more than free day care.
If the mayor-elect is so confident about his pre-K plans, let him include measures that will tell us whether the program is succeeding or not. In this, as in so many other areas, progressives come to the table with an abundance of good intentions. But when those good intentions require hundreds of millions in public spending, mayors should also insist on measurable results.