Suffer the Children

The right likes to emphasize the role that educational attainment plays in rising inequality, and it also likes to undermine efforts to improve educational outcomes for poor kids. Thus, the Bush brew of tax cuts for the rich, and declining per capita spending on preschool:

Discretionary grants under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) were flat funded at $2.1 billion, meaning that 200,000 children may loose assistance. Funding for HeadStart and Title I increased only at sub-inflation levels, leaving states to pick up the tab and putting more kids at risk of loosing access to early education.

We wouldn't want five year-olds showing up for kindergarden well-prepared now would we? But of course if your dividend earnings are almost large enough to pay out of pocket for preschool, Bush's prescient tax cutting has now put the dream within reach.