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The numbers don’t look good.
by Rob Roper
It’s been asked a lot lately with budgetary challenges running up against a lack of tax capacity, and the backdrop of DOGE findings of government waste at the federal level, “Do our elected representatives ever go back and evaluate the programs they pass to see if they are working as promised?” Not really, no. And a key example of this is Vermont’s taxpayer funded, public-school-run Pre-K program.
The Vermont legislature embarked on what amounts to a hostile takeover of the independent childcare cottage industry – small businesses mostly run by women – by the government public-school monopoly in 2006 with the passage of Act 62. The promises made heralding this law into statute were many. We will save $7 for every dollar invested! Test scores will rise! Special education needs will decrease! Youth crime rates will fall! And childcare will be more accessible and more affordable!
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This takeover made a dramatic expansion in 2014 with Act 166 when the voluntary public school administered program became mandatory in every district (you only get “local control” when you do what Montpelier wants) and new regulations drove 26% of the small, independent providers out of business within three years. In 2023 we saw another major expansion with Act 76, creating a $100 million a year payroll tax to fund further expansion of the program.
So, nearly two decades into this government Pre-K experiment and hundreds of millions of property tax dollars and now a new payroll tax added into the mix spent, have any of these promises/predictions come to pass? No. In point of fact, just about every metric where improvement was promised we have seen the opposite result.
Let’s compare these three charts showing Pre-K enrollment increasing from 16%/45% for three- and four-year-olds respectively in 2007 to 71%/64% in 2023, all while test scores consistently drop from 2015-2022 in both math and reading. Note: a three-year-old enrolled in pre-k in 2008 would be a fourth grader taking the NEAP test in 2015 and an eighth grader in 2019.
Beyond the test scores, has students’ social/emotional behavior generally improved since we expanded these so called “high quality” government run preschool options? No, they have not. Have special education needs in K-12 decreased or increased? Pretty sure the latter. Are teen and young adult crime rates going down? I don’t think so. Are we saving money on K-12 education as a result of this Pre-K “investment”? That would be a hard no.
Now, I understand that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but shouldn’t this evidence, circumstantial though it may be, give lawmakers pause? Maybe spend a few minutes investigating whether or not there is a negative connection between enrolment in these programs and academic and social/emotional outcomes for kids. Maybe do this before exposing more kids to a potentially harmful experience and taxpayers to a bill we really can’t afford, especially if it is resulting in a negative return on investment.
Tennessee, a state with a similar program to Vermont’s that also started in the mid-2000s, has done such evaluations – and the results they found are not good. The most recent study by Vanderbilt University, published in January 2022 found:
Data through sixth grade from state education records showed that the children randomly assigned to attend pre-K had lower state achievement test scores in third through sixth grades than control children, with the strongest negative effects in sixth grade. A negative effect was also found for disciplinary infractions, attendance, and receipt of special education services, with null effects on retention.
We are dealing with an education tax crisis on the one hand and a student outcomes problem on the other. Maybe a two-birds-with-one-stone solution here is to scrap the program that is both costing property taxpayers and anyone who earns a paycheck a couple hundred million a year and is more than likely contributing to some of the most glaring problems occurring in our classrooms.
Maybe a better solution for parents and taxpayers is to return to a private market where small, local, providers can once again offer childcare that is more accessible, lower cost, and – guess what! – higher quality in terms of outcomes than the so-called “high quality” government run system. In fact, in its 2019 report on universal Pre-K, the VT Agency of Education, “…did not detect a difference in child outcomes or classroom quality between teachers with a BA vs. an AA, or between teachers with and without a BA.” So, the whole basis for the “high quality” label and reason for the program – ostensibly better trained teachers — is fraudulent.
One thing’s for sure, the last thing we should be doing as part of fixing an inarguably broken public education system in Vermont is expanding that broken system — and pouring hundreds of millions of more dollars into it — to include two, three, four, five more “grades.” That’s ludicrous. Even a fourth grader could tell you that, though they might choose a different word.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com
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Categories: Commentary, Education
Rob: Your analysis of Vermont’s Pre-K programs misses a couple of important elements. First, what is the annual cost per Pre-K student? Second, how are Pre-K services provided?
In my district, Westminster, Pre-K is a School Choice program with most of the services provided by private sub-contractors… i.e., independent providers. And the cost per student is about $3500 annually.
Yes, Pre-K covers 3, 4, and 5-year-old children. And the programs are part-time. But when we compare the cost-benefit ratio with our annual $30,000 plus per student K-6 elementary programs in the public-school monopoly, programs that definitively retard student outcomes, Pre-K is the least of our worries.
This is not to say that Pre-K should be taxpayer financed. But it’s really nothing more than a daycare service. However, your own data suggests that the results in student performance are, if anything, a non-issue. Especially when compared to the student outcomes later on in the public-school monopoly.
Again, why regular Vermonters don’t insist on the School Choice governance dictated by the proposed H.89 School Choice bill, is beyond me. You once said H.89 ‘isn’t a serious bill’. Well, focusing political capitol on Pre-K schooling will have a significantly less Return on Investment than supporting H.89…. almost three times less.
According to the RAND study of a couple years back, VT was spending about $125 million per year on Pre-K. Then the payroll tax that went into effect this past July is supposed to bring in another $100 million per year. And that was just a down payment for what is expected to be something like $700 million per year program when fully implemented with full day for all four year olds, and expanded services for younger kids. That’s just the direct costs. If, as I suspect, the early separation from parents that these programs result in produce anxiety and social instability leading to mental health issues by the time kids reach first grade and lingering beyond, you can add a good chunk of the K-12 special needs education budget to the tally as well. Not an insignificant cost these days.
Rob: The Rand study (funded by the Gates Foundation), and your other references, are clearly inaccurate. I checked the costs of our local Pre-K program with our district Superintendent and cross referenced his numbers with our school budget.
And to speculate that daycare somehow produces anxiety and social instability leading to mental health issues when provided by independent service providers, chosen by parents, makes no sense whatso-ever. Parents have been using independent daycare services for the last century.
After all, the RAND study (Published May 6, 2021) specifically states that: “There is strong evidence that children who attend high-quality pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs learn skills that benefit them in school and life” and “cost information collected from 36 pre-K providers in three states demonstrates that per-child costs can vary greatly across providers even in the same system.”
Furthermore, the RAND study only covered 36 public and private providers operating as part of four publicly funded pre-K systems in three states for a 1-year period (2018-19). But even still, its model-based national-level estimates indicated that the per-child cost of high-quality pre-K for an academic year at the provider level were about $12,700.
Conversely, Vermont’s Pre-K program began in 2014 and was not part of the RAND study. And, unlike the programs in the RAND study, ‘choice’ is the key element in the Vermont Pre-K program, as enrollment is voluntary, and families select from a list of pre-qualified independent pre-K providers.
Again, my Westminster district’s Pre-K costs are approximately $3500 per student annually, while our public-school monopoly K-6 elementary school costs are more than $30,000 per student annually. Wasting time scrutinizing Pre-K, and not pushing for K-12 School Choice, is a further waste of resources.
I only reference the RAND study for its analysis of spending on pre-k in VT, which is accurate. It was commissioned for the purpose of bolstering the arguments for expanding Vermont’s publicly funded, public school regulated pre-k program, so take their efficacy claims with several grains of salt. I’ve been studying this issue since 2004 when they were originally passing Act 62 in 2006 (that’s the actual date VT’s pre-k push started, not 2014. That was an expansion of the 2006 law), and the claims of life-long benefits were/are based on some highly irrelevant studies, such as the High Scope/Perry Preschool project. You don’t seem to want to acknowledge two key points about what’s happening here. 1) the long term plan is for the public school system to fully take over 0-5 year old care. The private providers and “choice” elements will be eroded and eliminated over time. This has already happened in Franklin County. And 2, the point is to raise these services to the point where they are funded at the same rate as the K-12 system.
As for the mental health impacts of sending young kids to childcare, there is plenty of research that shows exposing developing brains to high stress and separation anxiety associated with “early education” — especially the kind of center-based programs public schools are providing and supervising; not small home based environments – that creates chemical imbalances with the potential for long term impacts on mental health. When children go to daycare there is a stress response that leads to a spike in cortisol, a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. For girls, the cortisol rise is associated with anxious, vigilant behavior, and for boys it is associated with angry, aggressive behavior. The younger the child and the longer the time spent in care the more dramatic the cortisol spikes tend to be.
Rob, Vermont’s Pre-K program is one of ‘universal school choice’. It is ‘voluntary’!
Is it the camel’s VTNEA nose under the proverbial public-school tent? Not yet. So please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If anything, Vermont’ Pre-K program is the School Choice camel’s nose under the monopolized public-school’s tent.
And again, while you may be able to cite “plenty of research that shows exposing developing brains to high stress and separation anxiety associated with “early education” – understand that Vermont’s Pre-K program is NOT ‘high stress’. It’s a VOLUNTARY School Choice program.
If anything, we should be investing our time promoting School Choice for all Vermont students, which is precisely what VT’s Pre-K program, AND the H.89 School Choice bill, does.
Jay, when that 2014 law went into effect in 2015 the regulations in it drove — by design — 26% of the independent childcare providers out of business to make way for the public school takeover of that sector. If you are a private provider today and want to participate in this “choice” program, you have to submit to VTNEA oversight. It’s not a good program.
As for it not being “high stress,” well, it is if you’re a child. The child doesn’t make the decision to be separated from a parent. When you have research that shows separating child from parent in that 0-5 age cohort creates anxiety and stress with long lasting mental health implications and a program that is designed to do just that — move more and younger kids into an “early education” system — and has succeeded in moving the number of 3 year olds in this situation from less than ten percent to over seventy percent, and over that same period of time we see a substantial increase in child mental health issues, it should give us pause, don’t you think?
VTNEA oversight…. No. The oversight is the same for any approved independent school, and the criteria are less demanding for Pre-K. Teacher union participation is not required.
Vermont State Board of Education -Series 2600 – Prekindergarten Education.
Manual of Rules and Practices
(3) Effective Parental Participation. Effective parental participation in a prekindergarten education program means the opportunity for parents and guardians to be actively involved in the program, and may include involvement in program development, policy work, program evaluation, curriculum development, and helping in the class; …
Do you have kids, Rob? I do. My wife and I had some great daycare providers here in Vermont. If they weren’t great, we changed providers. If kids are being over-stressed, it’s not because of the day-care provider. It’s because the parents aren’t paying attention. Remember, the Vermont Pre-K program is VOLUNTARY.
“Enrollment and participation in Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) is a family choice.”
And again, the point I’m making is to focus our energy on the public-school monopoly programs, not jeopardize the existing School Choice programs because of studies that don’t apply to them. In Vermont’s Pre-K, parents provide the necessary oversight. Not to mention the Pre- K program’s economic efficiency.
Sorry, Jay, but you’re just wrong. To participate in the taxpayer subsidized program, “All pre-kindergarten education programs, including Head Start and public school-operated programs, must meet specific requirements to operate in Vermont…. Act 166 aims to encourage high-quality early care and education [this means public school dictated curriculum and staff oversight.] … Programs must have a Vermont state-licensed early childhood educator or early childhood special educator in the center for the 10 hours of UPK provided.” [AKA VTNEA.]
Do I have kids? Yes, 2. They are adults now, but when little we actually created a Waldorf-based in-home childcare program with a few other families, registered with the state, first in the home of a friend and for one year in our home. Childcare when done well can be a very good thing. But the program you are advocating for sucks and is only going to get worse.
No, Rob, I’m not ‘just wrong’. You’ve been practicing the same Neuro-Linguistic-Programing techniques recently described in Dan Feliciano’s critique of Rep. Mari Cordes’s remarks. A political diversion. An attempt to ‘reframe the narrative’, shifting the focus of the discussion away from School Choice to teacher licensure.
And, I suspect, you’ve been successful. Your tactic, a common political strategy, is to keep talking in relatively complex and unsubstantiated terms until the average reader loses interest. Suffice it to say – I’m not the average reader. I know something of what I speak. So, in hopes that not everyone has moved on, consider the following.
We have to be licensed in Vermont to sell real estate, to install septic systems, to be an electrician and a plumber, and to drive a car. I can go on. And I do understand that regulation, when incorporated and improperly managed by special interest lobbyists, can be and often is prohibitive, often for corrupt purposes. The VTNEA is just such an organization. Just as are myriad NGO 501 (c) 3 organizations in Vermont. You get no argument from me in that regard.
But none of these circumstances precludes the fact that Vermont’s Pre-K program is based on School Choice governance. We can choose our plumber and our electrician. And parents can choose their Pre-K program. Or they can choose not to participate at all. The program is VOLUNTARY!
This is not to say that I am advocating for Vermont’s Pre-K program either. As I said in my first post: “This is not to say that Pre-K should be taxpayer financed.” But your continued insistence in avoiding the premise of my position, advocating for School Choice, is curious, to say the least. I’m beginning to be suspect of your intentions.
Your citations that Vermont’s Pre-K program is overly expensive are, to date, unfounded. The RAND study didn’t include analysis of Vermont’s Pre-K program. In Vermont, relative student proficiency test scores for children entering its Kindergarten are typically higher than when those students are in fourth and eighth grades. In other words, students enter our public schools better prepared than when they leave. And it remains to be seen whether or not Vermont’s Pre-K program has a causal relationship with that circumstance, or that parents simply do a good job preparing their kids. Or both. There is no evidence that Vermont students in Pre-K are performing poorly. Period.
And, as I mentioned earlier, when I compare the $3500 per student annual cost of my district’s Pre-K program with its $30,000 annual per student K-6 program costs, the return on investment of energy in reforming Vermont’s Pre-K is far less than investing our energy to reform its K-12 public school monopoly. The math: if you can save ten percent of pre-K costs, that’s $350 per student. If you can save ten percent of K-12 costs, that’s $3500 per student. Choose your windmill.
I am advocating for School Choice… an educational free market. Vermont’s Pre-K program is just that – school choice governance. That regulations exist in order to do business is beside the point. What’s most important is that parents can choose whether to participate or not, which creates an environment in which ‘market forces’ (i.e., supply and demand) drive expectations and results.
My point, and the point you persist in deflecting, is that School Choice elements exist in Vermont’s Pre-K program. But they are sorely missing in most of Vermont’s K-12 public school governance. Thus, I believe our time and energy is better spent at promoting School Choice governance for all K-12 students. Unfortunately, as you said earlier, to you, School Choice isn’t a serious endeavor. I’m simply trying to change your mind in that regard. In my opinion, based on established costs and student outcomes, School Choice is the most important educational endeavor we can pursue.
Jay, tempted as I am to leave this alone, you’re descent into flat out lying about my positions on a number of issues compels a response. First, I am very much a proponent of school choice — done the right way. You’re saying I don’t think school choice is a serious endeavor is false. What I don’t take seriously is H.89 as a vehicle to actually bring it about at all, let alone successfully. If you’re serious about cutting down a tree you bring an axe, not a wet noodle. Anyone who is a real advocate for school choice would recognize that H.89 is not a seriously operational piece of legislation. I wish it were. To make it a litmus test for school choice advocacy in assinne.
As for your charge that I am “reframing the narrative,” my opinion piece that you chose to comment on here is about whether or not the Pre-K program VT is running now is A) too costly (it is), and B) harmful to children (likely). YOU are the one who is trying to reframe that argument into a generic support/opposition to school choice because you can’t defend the program on its merits, nor can you defend whether or not the program itself — the actual program and how it operates — is appropriate for 3 and 4 year olds.
If you were a real advocate for school choice, you would recognize that this program was not put in place to advance school choice at ANY level of pre-k through 12, but to eliminate over time the free market for childcare from ages 0-5. The temporary school choice elements you are celebrating — and if you’ve watched Ed Committee testimony from the VTNA, principals’ association, and superintendents association, you would know that they are temporary — are a worm on the VTNEA’s hook. Hope your lip heals soon!
“We have to be licensed in Vermont to sell real estate, to install septic systems, to be an electrician and a plumber, and to drive a car. I can go on.” I bet you can. But do you know where you don’t need a license? To be a teacher in a truly independent school. It’s a reason why they succeed so well. Artists can teach art, scientists can teach science. You don’t need some BS license and be a member of a union to do a job you’re already qualified to do. The pre-k licencing requirement is a very bad precedent for you to be defending if you are really a school choice advocate.
Yes, the kids who participate in the pre-k program are better prepared when entering kindergarten — as one might expect. But what pretty much every study shows is those “benefits” fade out by the first grade and by third grade those kids who did not participate in the pre-k programs shoot ahead of their peers that did. It’s as if you tack two extra miles onto to the beginning of a 13 mile race, but burn out and fall behind over the final ten miles. And since the purpose of public education is to produce successful high school graduates, that should be where we are looking at results. Does our investment in pre-k contribute to an overall better educated and socialized high school graduate? I don’t think so.
Re: “… tempted as I am to leave this alone, you’re descent into flat out lying about my positions on a number of issues compels a response.”
I’ve not accused you of lying. Period. Reframe the narrative all you like. Wet Noodles, Axes, and all.
My position is clear. School Choice, in the same manner some of us are already lucky enough to enjoy, and as is already specified in 16 V.S.A. § 821 and § 822 Tuitioning governance, works great.
And the H.89 School Choice bill proposes, simply enough, to expand access to Vermont’s School Choice Tuitioning for all Vermont parents and their children, not just the few who happen to live in the right zip code.
And Vermont’s voluntary Pre-K governance provides School Choice for those parents who choose to use it.
If you favor School Choice, perhaps you should try presenting your own recommendation for School Choice governance for a change, instead of telling us that the very successful School Choice governance we already have “isn’t serious” and the voluntary School Choice Pre-K governance we already have “sucks”.
Compared to what?
I’ve always looked askance at the Let’s Grow Kids program that has been wining and dining our legislators for years. My son tells me I should think differently that he would happily pay taxes to cover daycare expenses for everyone’s kids including my grandchildren. And they do in the Scandinavian countries where their taxes are 50% of their income which also includes free health care. Granted some homes do not have parents who know how to stimulate educationally their children and that early boost makes a difference. I remain leery. Governing bodies don’t always have parental and family values at their core.
Maybe having a program of providing free babysitting by strangers was not such a great idea? The Vermont democrats and progressives ought to start basing these decisions on objective socialization outcomes and test scores instead of how happy they make the VTNEA teachers’ union.
The arguments in favor of pre-K, and I would add K as well, have always been extremely weak. Proficiency scores alone are proof of that. Tax payers are paying for everyone’s babysitter. Thats it.
Children so desire, and require for optimum physical, psychological, spiritual and educational growth, to be at home with a caring attentive parent during their early childhood years. No amount of studies will ever prove different. And deep down inside we all know this to be true.
I’m totally in agreement with Rob on this issue.
And yes I have children and was a stay at home mom who homeschooled for 7 years . My husband and I had nothing when we started out but our highschool diplomas and backbone. So the, “well you were fortunate you could afford to stay home” , argument doesn’t hold water, with us.
But Rebecca, Vermont’s Pre-K program is VOLUNTARY. No one is forced to make their kids leave home. In fact, parents are encouraged to take an active role in their children’s education. I’ve read the regulations. There is nothing in those regs. that says a home-based Pre-K program can’t be approved by the AOE.
Unfortunately, paying for the free babysitting is NOT voluntary…
You’re acting like a politician, Rich.
I didn’t say paying for ‘babysitting’ was voluntary. I said choosing the State’s ‘babysitting’ service for your children was voluntary. In fact, as I said in my first post: “This is not to say that Pre-K should be taxpayer financed.”
Our problem is, of course, that you and Rob Roper, and I suspect most others here on VDC, are victims of cognitive bias, not considering the actual details of my remarks and recommendations.
And you’re not the only one. I’ve been critiquing Vermont Public (VP) reporters for years now. Just this morning, I sent a note to the VP Team with regard to this morning’s broadcast story on Governor Scott’s education reform package. They didn’t have any constructive advice for listeners either. Here’s what I wrote.
Good morning, Ty: As always, I hope all is well with you and the Vermont Public Team. In that regard, I listened with interest this morning to VP’s local news report regarding Governor Scott’s proposed education reform, driven by his attempt to lower property taxes. Unfortunately, the report included no specific details.
Here are some points for the VP Team to consider the next time they interview a politician and broadcast a story on this subject.
1. According to the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE), it had a $2.7 Billion public Pre-K through 12th grade education program for the 2025-26 school year, serving approximately 80,000 students. That’s an annual cost of about $33,000 per student.
2. The AOE employes approximately 20,000 staff, from bus drivers and maintenance staff to school principals and district superintendents. That’s a student to staff ratio of 4 to 1.
3. All AOE employees receive a retirement package that includes a ‘defined benefit’ retirement program, as opposed to the ‘defined contribution’ package the private sector receives. And not only do current AOE employees receive the ‘defined benefit’ retirement package, all of the retired AOE employees receive it too… for as long as they live.
4. In Vermont’s ‘Tuitioning’ education governance, as specified in 16 V.S.A. § 821 and § 822, students attending independent schools have an annual per student cost of approximately $20,000, or thirty percent less than the cost of public-school students.
The next time VP broadcasts a segment on Education Reform, please ask the VP Team to consider these four points.
You’re acting like a politician, Rich.
I didn’t say paying for ‘babysitting’ was voluntary. I said choosing the State’s ‘babysitting’ service for your children was voluntary. In fact, as I said in my first post: “This is not to say that Pre-K should be taxpayer financed.”
Our problem is of course, that you and Rob Roper, and I suspect most others here on VDC, are victims of cognitive bias, not considering the actual details of my remarks and recommendations.
And you’re not the only one. I’ve been critiquing Vermont Public (VP) reporters for years now. Just this morning, I sent a note to the VP Team with regard to this morning’s broadcast story on Governor Scott’s education reform package. They didn’t have any constructive advice for listeners either. Here’s what I wrote.
Good morning, Ty: As always, I hope all is well with you and the Vermont Public Team. In that regard, I listened with interest this morning to VP’s local news report regarding Governor Scott’s proposed education reform, driven by his attempt to lower property taxes. Unfortunately, the report included no specific details.
Here are some points for the VP Team to consider the next time they interview a politician and broadcast a story on this subject.
1. According to the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE), it had a $2.7 Billion public Pre-K through 12th grade education program for the 2025-26 school year, serving approximately 80,000 students. That’s an annual cost of about $33,000 per student.
2. The AOE employes approximately 20,000 staff, from bus drivers and maintenance staff to school principals and district superintendents. That’s a student to staff ratio of 4 to 1.
3. All AOE employees receive a retirement package that includes a ‘defined benefit’ retirement program, as opposed to the ‘defined contribution’ package the private sector receives. And not only do current AOE employees receive the ‘defined benefit’ retirement package, all of the retired AOE employees receive it too… for as long as they live.
4. In Vermont’s ‘Tuitioning’ education governance, as specified in 16 V.S.A. § 821 and § 822, students attending independent schools have an annual per student cost of approximately $20,000, or thirty percent less than the cost of public-school students.
The next time VP broadcasts a segment on Education Reform, please ask the VP Team to consider these four points.
Perhaps you might consider them too, Rich.