The federal government should provide funds/subsidies to ensure that all poor children attend pre-Sc

First of all I want to point out that that the debate topic states that the government SHOULD do something making this a matter of opinion right from the get go. Since this debate is founded in opinion I feel the need to share mine by stating that the federal government should NOT fund any sort of education based on the fact that education has, until recently, been traditionally left to the state governments. The federal government has no business being in public education of any kind. Now onto the rebuttal. 1) A-D) First of all studies in which you gauge "economic benefits" based on schooling of any kind is a guessing game at best. There is no way to tell whether or not $5 were gained by schooling for every dollar spent. It's not feasible, there are too many variables and too many dollars going around to pin down this figure accurately. Universal preschool programs in Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee (2006, Education Week analysis) find no statistical difference in the performance of preschool and non-preschool students on any subject after the first grade so how can you say that the money was earned back if performance wasn't positively affected by the preschooling? It is too hard to make conclusions about someone's entire life based on the sole notion of preschool. And the numbers just don't add up. In the past 40 years preschool attendance jumped from 16% to 70% but fourth-grade reading, science, and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) haven't gone up since the early 1970′s. (http://www.drlaurablog.com...) Hmmm. So if this dramatic increase in productivity is there it certainly hasn't shown up on the tests. Not only is preschool not producing the supposed numbers that liberals laud it has actually be suggested lately that preschool is HARMING our children, not helping them. In fact there are many newly emerging studies saying that preschool has adverse affects on the children attending. A 2005 study from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley (neither of which is known as a conservative institution) found that kindergartners with 15 or more hours of preschool every week were less motivated and more aggressive in class than other kids. This study was backed up by a Quebec based Canadian study that shows how kids with preschooling are more anxious, aggressive and lazy than kids without preschooling.(http://www.leg.state.vt.us...) The earlier children start preschool the more socially unstable they become. *** Measure Quebec - [Rest of Canada] (in percent) Proportion of children in some type of care 51.4 - [16.3] Proportion of mothers working outside the home 20.9 - [8.9] Children's anxiety score (ages 2 to 4) a 34.0 - [11.8] Children's aggression score (ages 2 to 4) b 24.2 - [1.4] Hostile parenting score (ages 2 to 4) c 4.1 - [-4.0] Consistent parenting score (ages 2 to 4) d 0.7 - [4.6] Table 1 Before and After Quebec's Childcare Reform: Percentage Change in Selected Indicators, Quebec and the Rest of Canada Source:Calculations by the authors using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth, as in Baker, Gruber, and Milligan (2005). Each number in the table represents the percentage change in the measure from the first wave (1994-95) to the fifth (2002-03). For example, the proportion of children in care rose by 51.4 percent in Quebec, and by 16.3 percent in the rest of Canada. *** Based on this study the percentage of hostile behavior in children is dramatically higher if they attend preschool than if they haven't. As for the "nurturing environment" argument, how can taking a child away from their mother and putting them in a government run institution be more "nurturing" than being at home with their mother. If the mother isn't being a parent suitable for a nurturing environment Child Protective Services will get involved instead of preschool. We don't need our kids put into the arms of the government earlier, they need to be at home with the parents. Conclusion: Trying to track the success of a life based on one or two years of preschool is improbable and marred with a whole multitude of variables that skew such data. Being in preschool causes children to have anxious and aggressive behavior in comparison to their non preschool counterparts. The federal government has no business spending tax dollars on a worthless program that turns kids into hostile beings especially when it has no business in public education to begin with. Being poor has nothing to do with early education because in the end everyone ends up in a K-12 school which will far outweigh one or two years in early start programs. ** Oh and in regard to your comment about preschool paying for itself, can you name ANY federal programs that pay for themselves consistently in the long run? **