*note: this article appeared in The Washington Post

It’s the latest shockingly bad idea out of North Carolina.

This week state legislators filed a bill which would create a 3 year pilot program to deliver Pre-K education at home via computer to what it terms “at risk” children.

The program, called UpStart, costs a mere $500,000 per year.  It would be available to families living below the federal poverty line and children of active duty military personnel and would provide both internet access at home to families that can’t afford it and technical support to help them operate the software.  

According to HB 485, the goals of the pilot program are as follows:

(i) evaluate the effectiveness of giving preschool-age children access, at home, to interactive individualized instruction delivered by computers and the Internet to prepare them academically for success in school; and
(ii) test the feasibility of scaling a home-based curriculum in reading, math, and science delivered by computers and the Internet to all preschool-age children in the State.

I can’t believe I am actually writing these words, but the idea of having 4-year-olds going to preschool by looking at a computer in their home is horrendous.

Many of the advantages of a quality preschool education require children to actually be in the presence of other people.  Those advantages include, among many other things, learning how to communicate effectively with peers, how to work together to solve problems, how to share and wait for your turn, how to be independent, and how to be respectful toward peers and adults.  Those lessons form a critical foundation which helps prepare children for the transition to kindergarten.

Another issue with this bill, as NC Justice Center policy analyst Kris Nordstrom points out, is that it fails to appropriate any funds for an evaluation to determine whether the virtual preschool is working.  If we really want to ‘evaluate the effectiveness’ of preparing students for success in school by putting them in front of a screen at their house, we need to provide funds to do so.

HB 485 is yet another attempt to mask a serious legislative shortcoming by tossing a few dollars and a terrible idea at it.  If we are serious about wanting to prepare children for success in school, then we need to put up the money for universal Pre-K.