Conservatives Skeptical of Expanding Preschool

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

ATLANTA — President Obama’s plan to expand preschool for the nation’s children faces deep skepticism among Republicans, who fear the creation of another federal entitlement program that they say could add to the nation’s deficit and swell the ranks of the teachers’ unions.

In a rally with teachers after visiting a class of 4-year-olds on Thursday, Mr. Obama reiterated his State of the Union pledge to make high-quality preschool available to all children, which could cost as much as $10 billion a year, or nearly a tenth of the entire federal education budget.

“Hope is found in what works,” Mr. Obama said to raucous applause after joining the children as they played with blocks and a magnifying glass. “This works. We know it works. If you are looking for a good bang for your educational buck, this is it. Right here.”

Despite the outlines of a plan that White House officials said would use federal money in support of state-based preschool programs, conservatives said they were suspicious that it would be a foot in the door toward more big government. They also said there was little evidence that large-scale preschool programs do much good for children in the long run. Advocates, who said that quality preschool education makes a significant difference in children’s lives, were bracing for a fight in Congress.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Andrew J. Coulson, the director of the center for educational freedom at the Cato Institute, a libertarian group. “Why would you want to very expensively expand the programs like this if the evidence of effectiveness is not really sound?”

Mr. Coulson said the president’s preschool plan appeared to require highly paid preschool teachers and that Mr. Obama wanted to expand “a very strong, very consistently supportive constituency.”

“He’s boosting his own political base,” he said.

Republicans on Capitol Hill said they were waiting for more details before making a final judgment, but senior aides in the Republican-controlled House expressed concerns about the scope of the program, its quality controls and the criteria for participation.

“Countless early-childhood programs already exist at the state and federal levels,” Representative John Kline, Republican of Minnesota, said in a statement. “The president needs to explain how this program will be different,” added Mr. Kline, the chairman of the House committee on education and the work force. “These are important questions that won’t be answered at a campaign-style rally.”

Mr. Obama gave few details of his plan to dramatically expand access to what he called “high-quality early education,” although he cited preschools in Georgia as an example of the kind of long-term benefits for children taught at an early age by a qualified teacher.

“Study after study shows that the earlier a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road,” Mr. Obama said. “We are not doing enough to give all of our kids that chance.”

White House officials declined to discuss how much Mr. Obama’s proposals would cost. They said those details would be released with the president’s budget in the coming weeks. Cecilia Muñoz, the president’s domestic policy adviser, insisted the proposal would not add to the deficit.

“What we are talking about here is a partnership with the states,” Ms. Muñoz said. “To suggest that this is an entitlement program is just completely inaccurate.”

W. Steven Barnett, the director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, estimated that the president’s plan could cost between $3 billion and $20 billion a year. He called the plan “the biggest proposed change in American education since Brown v. the Board of Education,” the court case that integrated schools. By comparison, the federal government spent about $108 billion last year on all education programs, according to Jason Delisle of the New America Foundation. That sum includes Education Department grants, Head Start and student-loan subsidies, among other programs.

As described by administration officials, the new preschool plan would seek to increase the number of children who attend school before kindergarten. Federal money would be used primarily to make preschool classes available for more low- and moderate-income children, though the goal would be to persuade states to offer preschool to all who wanted it.

Officials said the state preschool programs would have to meet rigorous standards, hire highly qualified teachers and submit to assessment programs. Teachers would have to be paid comparably to kindergarten teachers, and class sizes would be limited.

The White House is betting that the public will pressure lawmakers to support preschool efforts that have been embraced in some of the most politically conservative states. Oklahoma and Georgia, which have Republican governors and were won by Mitt Romney in last year’s election, have expanded their preschool programs in recent years.