Raising children of the State

King Solomon wrote in his Proverbs: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Solomon intended for parents to base their children's future on the Creator's morals and integrity. A child's mind is a sponge. Filling those sponges with worthwhile attributes -- responsibility, trustworthiness, honesty, and faithfulness -- lays the proper foundation for adulthood.

　
However, training children is a two-way street. When children are introduced to an authoritarian state at an early age they learn to accept authoritarianism as the norm. Rather than seeing government and bureaucracy as contrary to liberty, children view them as the conveyors of freedom. Where better for the State to plant that seed than in preschool, and what better time than the present?
　

Government affiliated inspectors are hard at work sowing the fields at West Hoke (NC) Elementary School. At first consideration one might wonder why this is a big deal. Inspectors performing proper tasks can have positive effects. No one wants unsafe, substandard schools. No one wants their son or daughter educated for twelve years only to graduate functionally illiterate. However, what type of message do children receive when the State is poking around in their lunchboxes? That's the kind of inspection conducted at West Hoke.
　

State authorized inspectors disapproved the homemade lunches students brought to school. Foods like turkey, cheese, fruits, and juices just don't satisfy the USDA's nutritional standards. Children who packed such lunches were given supplemental meals that met the State's guidelines. We should then recognize that the State's guidelines aren't guidelines at all. Guidelines provide information to assist people in determining their own best path. What happened at Hoke wasn't a recommendation, but a State dictate.
　

Questions have arisen concerning exactly who was involved with inspecting the lunchboxes and providing the supplemental meals, prompting officials to deny any role in lunchroom policing. Yet it matters not which government entity instigated the inspections. The fact remains that a government contractor, employee, or bureaucrat searched children's lunches. Youthful minds receive the impression that the State possesses unlimited right to search anything, and for any reason.
　

In some circles, my views on cafeteria checkpoints will brand me a pilot of black helicopters who wears a tinfoil flight helmet. However, who can reasonably deny that lunchbox inspections elevate the State above the home and, most notably, the parent? It was the homemade lunches that were deemed insufficient. It was homemade lunches that caused West Hoke to receive a poor grade in meeting student's nutritional needs. The home and the parent are portrayed as uncaring and irresponsible while the State becomes the child's advocate and provider. That is the message presented to the students at West Hoke. In fact, children are being conformed to the State's superiority through varying methods all across this country.
　

The simple solution is to dismiss "Lunchgate" as silly and ineffective. After all, the homemade lunches weren't confiscated. But that's also a serf's solution. A State authority figure invariably has an intimidating effect on small children. One little girl was so frightened that she didn't eat the lunch her mother had prepared. What lesson did that child, and all children subjected to the lunch inspections, learn? They are taught to respect State authority and provision over that of their parents. A free society cannot survive when the family unit yields to the State.

　
Children should certainly learn to respect properly exercised authority, like a teacher's authority over the classroom. But shouldn't we be at least equally jealous when government inserts its will between the child and the home?
　

The State is laying a foundation whereupon each future generation is easier controlled than the previous one. Today's children are taught at a tender age that the State is the foremost authority in their lives. Homemade lunches, homemade values, and homemade relationships are invariably inferior to what the State promotes, condones, or mandates. When today's children become tomorrow's adults they will rely on the State for their needs rather than on their individual skills and character. Tomorrow's adults will then breed another generation even more comfortable with State control. And the beat goes on.
　

As Solomon observed, children raised in the way they should go will build their adult lives from a solid foundation. But the reverse is equally true. The State is doing a thorough job of training children to revere government above family and choose dependence over liberty. Children are being trained in a way they should not go. When they are old, will they be able to depart from it?

Government receives the most “bang” for the preschool buck

There’s a study for all occasions and all occasions warrant a study. Otherwise, grant money would remain unspent. One study recently targeted preschool education, finding preschool classes provided benefits to students even into adulthood. Sound odd? Not really; many are the preschool skills that serve us in our latter years.

Counting to ten helps determine the number of fingers we have remaining after a day of sawing lumber. Identifying basic colors is essential to stopping, yielding, or proceeding at traffic intersections. And tying one’s own shoes is beneficial in both social and business settings. It also looks great on your résumé.

Such are the lessons from preschool. Still, the study’s proponents claim preschool gives taxpayers the “most bang for the buck.” Lead researcher Arthur Reynolds says preschool classes produce a $90,000 return on a $9,000 investment (the cost for 18 months of preschool). That’s not a shabby ROI. Most of us would take a ten-fold return on our 401k and never bat an eye. But when we take a closer look at the study’s statistics, the results seem mixed.

For instance, adults who had attended preschool earned annual salaries only $800 higher than those who didn’t. Just 5-percent were more likely to graduate high school, and only 4-percent were more likely to attend a four-year college.

Actually, preschools teach rudimentary lessons that were once taught at home, including homes with low incomes. The practice has eroded since the federal nanny state usurped the role of father in most such households. Preschool offers little to a child of average, or even slightly below average, learning ability. It does, however, remove children from the home, allowing politically correct education requirements to be instilled at a younger age.

I hate to sound like a soldier in the tin foil hat brigade, but I’m suspicious of government’s motives. Whenever a study touts the virtues of earlier government involvement in our children’s lives, the suspicions grow. A young mind exposed to the concept of government as a god-like provider learns to believe government’s function is to meet individual needs. Once those views are ingrained in the mind, a child will view government as the source of liberty and rights through adolescence and into adulthood.

Education has long been a tyrant’s tool. Hitler used education to indoctrinate the Hitler Youth. Stalin, too, leaned on education. The Soviet leader called education “a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” American preschools won’t likely turn out the next generation of Brown Shirts or Young Pioneers. But preschools can sell children an unrealistic vision of government and liberty.

Preschool’s benefits may well extend into adulthood. But benefits are more for the state than the child. Seldom in human history have governments served goal’s other than their own. Why believe government preschools break from tradition?