Smart?
March 18, 2011 - by
Should the legislature merge and cut Smart Start and More At Four? As the Geico guy might ask: “Is stirring up Jim Hunt a good idea?”
Republican legislators apparently are hearing an earful from Hunt already. Those who weren’t around when he was Governor will learn what one legislator back then told one of Hunt’s lobbyists: “Tell the Governor to please stop calling me. I’ll vote for his bill.”
Now, a consolidation of the two programs might be smart. More At Four always smacked of an effort to come up with a signature rhyming program like Smart Start, which began a decade earlier.
But there’s a difference – and a history.
When Hunt created Smart Start in 1993, the policy experts gave him two options: Put the program in the public schools. Or put it under an existing – or new – state agency.
Hunt rejected both.
He thought the schools had all they could handle with K-12. And he didn’t trust a new bureaucracy. So he created a program that has no state government structure in Raleigh: it’s primarily a pass-through to send the money to local communities, which decide how to spend it.
That created an army of local supporters – like church day care centers – in every legislator’s district. That was Hunt’s bulwark against what he knew would be an effort to dismantle Smart Start at some point.
More At Four, I gather, is different. It’s run through the schools.
One ploy the Republicans may try is pitting Smart Start against teachers: “We can avoid teacher layoffs, but that means severe cuts to Smart Start.”
Count on it: That will mobilize both Hunt and Smart Start’s friends in 100 counties.
Smart?
March 18, 2011/
Should the legislature merge and cut Smart Start and More At Four? As the Geico guy might ask: “Is stirring up Jim Hunt a good idea?”
Republican legislators apparently are hearing an earful from Hunt already. Those who weren’t around when he was Governor will learn what one legislator back then told one of Hunt’s lobbyists: “Tell the Governor to please stop calling me. I’ll vote for his bill.”
Now, a consolidation of the two programs might be smart. More At Four always smacked of an effort to come up with a signature rhyming program like Smart Start, which began a decade earlier.
But there’s a difference – and a history.
When Hunt created Smart Start in 1993, the policy experts gave him two options: Put the program in the public schools. Or put it under an existing – or new – state agency.
Hunt rejected both.
He thought the schools had all they could handle with K-12. And he didn’t trust a new bureaucracy. So he created a program that has no state government structure in Raleigh: it’s primarily a pass-through to send the money to local communities, which decide how to spend it.
That created an army of local supporters – like church day care centers – in every legislator’s district. That was Hunt’s bulwark against what he knew would be an effort to dismantle Smart Start at some point.
More At Four, I gather, is different. It’s run through the schools.
One ploy the Republicans may try is pitting Smart Start against teachers: “We can avoid teacher layoffs, but that means severe cuts to Smart Start.”
Count on it: That will mobilize both Hunt and Smart Start’s friends in 100 counties.