RE: Question 1: Pre-school support

In response to the concerns about State encroachment on the rights of families to raise their young children and limit parental involvement….

There's no need to be scared of any of the programs or ideas mentioned in the school readiness master plan.  Only parents have the responsibility for raising their children and making choices about their care and development.  The School Readiness Master Plan is very clear about supporting families so they can fulfill these responsibilities.  Where services are called for, they are available for voluntary usage.  The language and the intent are synonymous---there is no hidden agenda.  

For example, with support services, including health, we made a very conscious choice to avoid concepts such as "comprehensive services" because this implies everyone who falls within a certain income level needs everything the State might offer.  To the contrary, one low income family might avail itself of the Healthy Families Insurance Program, while another may just need support for early screening of a disability.  With pre-school, as another example, we found through census data, that most middle and high-income children (even with mothers not employed for pay outside the home) are enrolled in some sort of pre-school.  It's the working class and working poor who don't have access to the pre-school choices and/or don't have access to the income to pay for the choices of pre-school for their child if they wanted to use it.  Finally, the Master Plan supports parental leave for infant care---not the expansion or creation of institutions specifically for this purpose.  Again, using parental leave would be a voluntary action or choice on the part of the parent.

As for implying that the Master Plan says parents are inadequate, the opposite is true.  What the Master Plan says is that many parents have challenges with income and other resources.  These challenges do limit the parent's choices about health care, education, time with their children and so on.  As a result, their children are at a great disadvantage compared to the middle and upper class.  The goal is to respond to the concerns that have been expressed by many parents, and reduce some of the challenges through services that benefit families, children and society as a whole.  Again, none of these services to families proposed are mandatory.  All are intended to be utilized on a choice basis, and some would have means tested co-payments.  

Parent choice necessitates parent input.  Whenever parents make a decision regarding their young children, they are the ones who have to review information, think about it, and then decide.  Whenever children are in an educational program---from pre-school to high school---they perform better if their parents encourage them, assist them, and nurture their learning.  Sure, some children achieve despite difficult circumstances including not having any parents to turn to. But, in general, the evidence in favor of parent involvement in children's learning processes is incontrovertible and applies across the board.  The Master Plan working group is well aware of this, and repeatedly refers to educators and educational programs that respect a child's culture, home language, and life experience.  The goal:  to work WITH families toward achieving their goals for their children and by extension, society will benefit multi-fold.