The Obama administration’s push to spend $75 billion on preschool programs as part of its Early Learning Initiative is another “incredibly misguided” waste of taxpayer money, a Heritage Foundation researcher says.

“We already have three-quarters of 4-year-old children enrolled in early education, preschool programs,” Heritage senior education analyst Lindsey Burke said, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

“So the idea that the federal government would spend $75 billion to create a large-scale government preschool program for all 4-year-olds, I think, is incredibly misguided.”

President Obama wants to include $75 billion in more spending for “preschool for all,” the Free Beacon reported. And that’s on top of $20 billion the federal government is already spending on early education a year.

Watch military kids stop playing, snap to attention out of respect

And way too much of it – following the pattern of the $8 billion a year Head Start program — is doing no good at all, Burke said.

“Head Start has been utterly ineffective,” she said. “HHS has said in their evaluation that Head Start has no impact on children’s cognitive ability, the parenting practices, their access to health care, nothing.”

Burke was referring to a Department of Health and Human Services evaluation of the Head Start she wrote about on the Heritage site in January. The liberal sacred cow got gored.

Head Start failed to improve the cognitive abilities of children, their access to health care, and the parenting practices of participants.

In addition to having little to no impact on the cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of its participants, federal researchers reported worse peer relations and lower teacher-assessed math ability for Head Start children.

“So all of these things that Head Start was supposed to do, the HHS says, ‘Nope. Sorry, there’s no effect,’ ” Burke said.

And now Obama wants to blow another $75 billion on what is basically a full-employment program for day-care teachers – and a lousy one at that.

Misguided? Only if it’s your money.

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Joe Saunders

Joe Saunders, a 25-year newspaper veteran, is a staff writer and editor for BizPac Review who lives in Tallahassee and covers capital and Florida politics. Email Joe at [email protected].

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