Beginning government education at birth?

"Zero to Five Plan" - beyond Orwellian.

It sounds to me like another liberal plan for the government to remove parental responsibilities, just like when they made abortion legal... just another step towards a government that runs the people instead of being run by the people. Three cheers for Barack the socialist!

Karl Marx must be dancing in his grave.

When we will begin to call this what it is Communism!!! So say you have money and choose to keep your kids at home from birth to kindergarten. Is that a choice? Probally not. Why don't we all yell out loud Barack stands for change all right! Communism!!! Is that what we want?
This guy strokes people with class envy saying its not fair this guy has more then you. I will take it an give it to you poor people. Well hey America drive down to your local projects and see the level of life the government is capable of providing you! Is this what we want more and more government control on health care, schools, energy?? These fools on both partys can only screw us more and more. They can't fix anything!!! Time to read the constitution people and make change. THE CHANGE THE MAJORITY OF THIS COUNTRY WANTS!!!

Hmm...let me check. Nope. STILL no mention of a federal role in education in the Constitution of the United States. This would seem to make the federal Department of Education un-Constitutional since its inception in 1979. It would also seem to make any expansion of federal involvement in education un-Constitutional.

Maybe it only seems that way...I'm probably just a bitter clinger who has no chance of understanding this issue. It's way to nuanced for me...

We all must remember that Obama's "Education Czar" is none other than William Ayers (he of the Weather Underground). Both are committed Marxists with a definite Maoist leaning.

I see nobody who is fighting any of this, we sit here and complain but do nothing. I am guilty as well, I am simply to busy running a business to take the time to go deal with loser leftist who's life is devoted to taking my Freedoms away and who are so tiny and lifeless they have no vision except to impose on others their shallow views.
Atlas will indeed shrug.

Thanks for bringing this up, with so much going on, its these "little" sneaky things that often go unnoticed until its too late.

I have posted it at my blog, I hope you don't mind...

To DaveT:
I agreed with you on another story and I agree with you on this one and since I've spent a lot of time thinking about the exact sentiments you expressed in your post I thought I might post a response.
I often times think that the task of actually making change seems to be so monumental and daunting that those who are civilly and socially responsible minded people feel as though they couldn't possibly make a difference. I would also venture to say that those who actually do stand up and try to make changes feel incredibly isolated as though no one is supporting them, especially in the face of the inevitable leftist, liberal attacks that are leveled at them. There is also the personal toll that is exacted on the individual, their family, and friends by the media who will minutely examine their every move, word, and action looking for inconsistencies or embarrassments and if none are found, they'll just make them up, so honestly, who wants to put up with that, especially if they didn't feel as though there would be any support coming to them.
I say all of that as a precursor to this; What we all need to remember is that it's not the big things that stem the tide, but the little things. Obama's education policy is a great example. It is a very bad policy coming from a man full of very bad policies. But we can all resist it by just following what we know to be the right path looking Obama and all his friends in the face and telling them "No...this is the line you will not cross; you will take nothing more away from us"

Seems like Obama means it with those CheGuevara-like posters.
Obama's Education Camp.
Heil Obama.
Plus we have to remember that the aforementioned mega illegit births are OUR children.
Have you forgotten already?

So, the dot connection of even MORE nationalized early childcare = MORE illegit births = MORE children to put into the ObamaEducationCamp.

All we have to do is PAY.

For "our" children.

I guess by that time, what I am typing here will be hate speech by law, so what does it matter?

But let me say this: they are NOT my children.
They are first the responsibility of the father and mother.
Then the siblings and parents of the parents.
Then local community.
Then the state.

Me? I am, via the "federal" govt, WAY down the list.

I do not see what the problem is. Most of this will be done by TV broadcasts. The infants program will commence immediately after the President's morning address to the nation.

Adult education will accomplished by having recordings of the President's speeches playing 24 hours a day in the home and at every public place.

Justin:
One man said no and all of Rome trembled.
Your right, the problem is now, challenge the left and they will destroy you. This is of little concern if you have a little or a lot. Unfortunately, most of us have some and as such, we cannot afford to get destroyed. As a example, Hannity was audited by the IRS every year the Clinton's were in office. This is typical of the abuse of power by politicians and is a scary prospect.
Honestly, things are so out of control I am pondering if the best path is not accumulate as much wealth as possible and then try to quietly go live abroad in some small country. At least they are not trying to run your life.
I really see not turning back in this nation. I have decided Freedom is a temporary condition.

Leftists need to teach kids early to report back to their government masters whenever their parents break the (upcoming)law by thinking unapproved thoughts.

Why does the potential Obama administration increasingly feel like a 1950's paranoid "what if the reds took over" movie?

"all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."

There was a pause; then the voice began again.

"Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able"

So tell me we're not headed towards Socialism,then Marxism.Wake up America,we have to save our FREEDOM!

I haven't seen any comments so far about the fact that we've had this nonsense in California for several years. It's called "First Five" and is funded by money collected from tobacco sales. The counties are allocated a share of the money based on their birth rate and they have latitude to develop programs locally within an accountability structure (read: bureaucracy). The good news out of all this is that much of the money being spent is on infant/child health initiatives in counties around the state. And I suppose the fact that the money isn't coming from the general tax revenues is a small victory. Though it does spend revenue that could be put to other uses.

I had the misfortune to do some contractual work for an NGO in LA county that was spending a sizable chunk of LA county First Five money on Pre-K education. Armed with a study that has since been discredited, they were developing a plan to administer the disbursement of millions of dollars to sub-contractors, mostly day care providers who would pledge to provide Pre-K curriculum in their day care settings. In my entire consulting career, I've never had as much trouble respecting a client organisation as I did this one. Their conversations ranged from the Machiavellian to the absolutely inane and their staff was rich with young and young-ish policy wonks who were long on ideals but pitifully short of practical, tactical plans. They were getting their knowledge OJT-style. When I finished my business with them, they were busy planning to spend a large piece of their pot of money on an office suite in downtown LA that was custom designed by a premiere architectural firm and which provided all the amenities of a profitable corporations' executive suite. Keep in mind that there was already a First Five agency and bureaucracy and this NGO was another separate agency and bureaucracy underneath the original bureaucracy. Whew!

I remember thinking more than once that I was glad I'm not a smoker and that none of my money was going to support this.

So BHO has proposed a similar initiative for the whole country. It will spawn a series of interlocking federal, state and local bureaucracies which will serve in the capacity of providing full employment to liberal policy wonks while accomplishing precious little in return.

Ideas such as this will fundamentally change the course of democracy in our nation and must be resisted at all costs. We must put our feet down and say no to socialism/collectivism. It's a failed and discredited model that has brought misery, poverty and death wherever it's been used.

"Zero to Five Plan"

The operative word here is "Zero", and that describes Obama.

The more I learn about this guy, the less I like him. He sounds like he wants another version of Fidel Castro's Cuba - the child actually belongs to the State, the parents only have the responsibility taking care of the child as it grows up (as we saw as a result of the Elian Gonzalez case).

PLEASE, people - do everything you can to stop this Communist from being elected.

DaveT,

Thanks for all of your comments - on this and other topics. I would disagree that no one is fighting against these policies, and I don't just mean by writing pieces for AT or websites like it. I think that perhaps the most effective thing that most of us can do is talk openly and honestly to everyone we can about policy positions and likely outcomes. We need to be able to refute the "Obama-nation" vision with facts, figures, and logic, and we have to be tireless while doing it.

It may be futile in the end - emotional attachment to Obama may be too much for logic to overcome - but it is a fight I'm willing to make whenever I'm given the smallest of openings.

Cheers.
Bob M.

I'm confused. If the states refuse to accept the federal funds, what authority does the federal government have over them to force the states to go along?

But it is 'free' and its for the children! I can hear them now!

Some of the sentiments expressed are a little disheartening / disheartened. This is a battle that will never stop, some will reach for more and more power in exchange for more and more intrusion into our lives and some will resist. The struggle will never completely end.

I think our bet course of action lays in a focused effort at critical coke points. The mother's milk of almost all that is burgeoning before us is our tax dollars. Our representative have shown that they can not resist the urge to spend, and can come up with ever more creative justifications as to why a certain program is essential. If we send it they will spend it.

Look at what happened the longer our team was in control... Washington corrupts most all who go there for any period of time. (Term limits?)

Why do you think 'tax cuts for the rich was the never ending refrain of the democrats for the past 7 years? It is why they fought so hard to keep the cuts from being made permanent. Once made permanent they would have a perpetual limit how much they can throw away.

If we deny the monster its food source it will die.

A total overhaul of the universally hated IRS and the tax code is one means by which we can get them out of our life. Maybe if we focused all of our energy on achieving this single goal we can prevail. While I never fully trusted the Huckster was his line about putting a going out of business sign on the IRS had a tremendous appeal to me.

Like many I see posting on this site I find it hard not to be disheartened by our current circumstance. Like many I too run my own business and do not lack for things to do.

The statist are relentless in their drive to grow the government, expand their power and control every aspect of our lives. There is no problem or cause for which they can not design a program to correct or improve. At times it seems as the whole world is in league with them bent on the destruction of our way of life.

At the same time I am a true believer. We live in the finest country the world has ever seen, we have been blessed with the finest form of government ever conceived. (Albeit currently distorted)I believe our Constitution is a gift from God. We enjoy the freedoms we have because those before us did not turn away from the challenge whether it was foreign or home grown. I look at my grand children and know that I have an obligation to them to do all that I can to see that they enjoy no less than I have received and more. May sound trite and hay seed but it what I believe in my heart. I must stay involved, I must continue to do what I can, give what I can and influence who I can. I have a debt that must be paid.

Sounds more like a Hitler Youth program to me. After all, kids need to be trained for the "civilian security force".

Plato must be dancing in HIS grave also. He wanted everyone to become a ward of the state from birth.

Womb-to-the-tomb care of government for its citizens means no hope for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for anybody. It is Communism. Nobama, thank you.

Hmmmm...methinks this has Bill Ayers', world renowned professor of Education, fingerprints all over this plan.

Isn't it pretty ironic that a man who is one of the nation's strongest proponents of late, late, late term vicious, cruel, barbaric, disgusting partial birth abortion is so CONCERNED with the welfare and "education" of infants! : ) Help me friends, what am I missing here?

As I read the comments, I find most of them are from men. From the perspective of a woman and a mother, I appreciate many of the sentiments. Jeanette, Beth, and Shannon appear to be the author's supporters all the way. What I find lacking is a concern for family-size limitation, a two-parent family wherever possible, support for conditions such that as much of the responsibility for child rearing originates in the family, and a willingness to think about what social, economic, and political conditions are necessary such that freedom and equality of opportunity is a reality, beginning with the family.

Unfortunately, so many Americans are stretched very thin because most of the income made by workers of corporations is going to the CEOs and upper management -- or to shareholders. Regular families are having great difficulties making ends meet. In addition, I believe that health care for these regular Americans (including children in size-limited families) is relegated to the ether by most of the men commenting on this blog. If we are to have limited government and a bureaucracy that functions only for necessities, then the rest of society must work as well.

Probably most of you are libertarians or Conservative Republicans and I admire many of your ideals. But the next generation of adults (today's children) must have the opportunity for a decent life. Put forward your proposals for a "decent life" and then we can deep-six all of BHOs horrible authoritarian ideas. And a decent life does not have to mean "affluence". Until then, the needs in areas of our society, including a good-enough education, are so great that his ideas will have some credence. Take his believability away and this leftist culture will shrivel up and die.

The market alone will not do this; it does not provide the sustenance for freedom. It is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. Life and its vicissitudes can be brutal and one cannot raise children to be "d"emocratic and conservative of traditional values if they have been brutalized by the vagaries of life.

I don't think any of the posters have ever had the experience of putting their child in private day care.

I don't think any of these posters have ever had to put their kid on a waiting list BEFORE THEY WERE CONCIEVED in order to get into a good daycare.

I don't think any of these posters have ever dropped their kids off in a daycare of dubious standards because they have no better option.

I don't think any of the women have handed over half their paycheck so that someone could watch the kids.

I don't think any of these posters realize (or care) that in many families, both parents HAVE to work.

Instead, all we get are paranoid, delusional fantasies of governments brainwashing our children.

I believe it was Lenin who said: "Give me your children."

"Unfortunately, so many Americans are stretched very thin because most of the income made by workers of corporations is going to the CEOs and upper management -- or to shareholders."

Class hatred/warfare, C.D.? You fail to realize that many "workers" are *also* shareholders. Virtually everyone who has a 401(k) or a 403(b) is a shareholder. This us-against-them mentality is proletariat prattle. Those who think that way have been "chumped" by the Marxists.

"Karl Marx must be dancing in his grave."

You mean rolling in his fire pit!

Anyway. Anyone who evisions taking babies from their mothers in the first three years of live is the devil. The beast is rising. Onward soldiers!

Jim:
You miss the entire point here, having children is a choice. Last time I checked sex was a voluntary cat? As such, if you CHOOSE to have children then you are by default, accepting responsibility. Who ever said life was supposed to be easy Jim? Why am I somehow responsible to raise YOUR kids? Your right, I have never waited to put kids in a day care because we waited to have kids until we could afford it and then my wife stays home. Wow, pretty complicated stuff? I work about 77 hours a week Jim.

Kids can be raised on one income. Oh, the cost of living is to high in your city? Then move Jim.
You know, life is about choices and responsibility for those choices Jim. Grow up.

Jim,

In many families, both parents would not HAVE to work if we didn't HAVE TO PAY so much in taxes. As far as how much daycare costs, I am well aware of it which is why I don't have a paying job. Because, by the time I paid for childcare, commuting costs, takout food, professional clothing, job related expenses, and various handyman and other home services, there would be nothing left of my paycheck.

The fact is, if I had stayed working when my first was born, I would have had her in daycare at least 10 hours per day. I reasoned that such an arrangement was not good for an infant and still stand by that.

My youngest child was a competent reader by the time he entered kindergarten. I don't think for a minute that a daycare provider, with a room full of children, would want or be able to take the time to read with a child every day and help him learn to read one on one. Only someone who loves and cares for the child is willing to do so.

Not only that, we will have to pay for this new childcare initiative and that will increase taxes on families like mine, forcing even more parents who don't want to be there, into the workforce. This will in turn, depress wages further, and the cycle will continue.

There is no such thing as free lunch or free childcare. I understand that many families don't have much choice, but I personally resent the fact that the answer is always to make those of us who have genuinely sacrificed in order to make a different choice (having a parent home) send both parents to work in order to pay for other people's childcare.

And I resent the implication that only rich families have a parent at home, because it is just not true. My family is not that far from being qualified for the school lunch program where we live. (if we had another kid, we would be there)

The brainwashing part doesn't have to be an active part of the agenda, because when you have a bunch of kids to watch and the daycare provider is just there putting in the hours, you get a bunch of lazy, nonthinking, TV addicited, zombies which is exactly what the dems see as their best voting block.

@ Jim: my husbands not making much money! and I'm still staying at home with the kids. What is that called? Making sacrifices for what I believe in! Oh, no! But then I can't have all the new gadgets and STUFF that I'm supposed to NEED! whatever. if he gets elected all of us are in trouble!

Education starts from day one. I'm no politician but I know the difference between right and wrong. I happened upon this site while googling, "education and adult influences failed me what now as an adult". As a child I was extremely shy. My teachers would never call on me when I raised my hand and would call on me when I did not. I felt humiliated and embarrased every time I got a wrong answer. I never had teachers that noticed my strengths but always focused on my weaknesses. My mother with all her good intentions would become very frustrated with me if she tried to help and explain things to me. She always said I could come to her for help and I did, but when I did not understand after three or four tries she would yell and bang on the table and say all kinds of discouraging things. So I stopped raising my hand and stopped asking mom for help. Most of my life I thought I was stupid and I hated school. I am biracial, I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens NY. The education in my area is outrageously different from the education offered in other areas. Teachers come for a pay check and put all students in the same catergory. My parents divorced when I was 14, I got raped when I was 15, I was pregnant with my first child by the time I was 17. There where a lot of other factors that played into my life but thats just a few to let you know my mind set at the time. I failed miserably through high school. When my first daughter was concieved, I read to her in my womb and everyday when she was born. I played classical music to her because I read about it making children smart. I took her to museums an I praised her and had patience with her while she did home work. My daughter is going to be sixteen this year. She has been in honor society her entire life, straight A's all the way. Not only a great student academically, I have tried to teach her humanity, she has won citizenship awards all through school. She has been a part of student government and was voted school president in six grade, and voted in by eighth graders.
I am 34 years old. I did not realize I was intelligent until I was thirty I started to have hints. I was admitted into a mental hospital because of an incident but realeased, having a sound mind. While I was there I was given MRI's of my brain, and three IQ tests and scored 174 and above. I was told by 5 differnt doctors to go back to school and I did. I achieved a 4.0 gpa.
I spent most of my life thinking I was stupid and lacking confidence. Something has to change in the system. One can not just blame the parents because most the time the parents come from the same lacking education system and parents that did not stress the importance of education and taught their children how to speak broken English. There are generations and generations of poor education and discouragement and somethng needs to change. When someone from Italy or Spanish speaking countries comes to America and their English is not so good it's accepted but when an American or African American speaks broken English it is viewed as disgusting and stupidity. Yet Africans were brought here and had to learn the native language on their own and not given proper education and it still goes on today.
I believe something needs to change. For me to not realize I was even slightly intelligent until I was thirty years old is ridiculous. I am in school and trying to raise two children on my own. Everyday is a struggle for me but I will not give up. Even though my moms ways were harsh and I could not see it at the time, it was her and only her that planted the seed for me to want to gain knowledge.
Americans need to stop looking at dollars and cents and think about the children and the future. Get rid of the supercillious attitudes and realize that unless there is a serious change on a deep and overall level things will only get worse. All Americans need to be self sufficient and unless they are given the proper tools and resources to achieve that nothing will ever change.