Taxpayer Funded Preschool?

When we looked at preschool, we decided not to do it at all. I could easily teach everything that my children would learn in preschool. I made sure my children had many opportunities to be around other children at church, play groups, story times at the library, and classes through Polk County Conservation. We talked, read books, travelled, played games, explored different places and ideas, and we loved our time together. When it came time for my kids to start school, we put them in, because that's what everybody did. After a couple of years, we took them back out. We decided to follow a different path, as many have before us. I am raising thinkers and learners of things. My children will stick out in a crowd. They won't fit in with kids their ages, and I am so proud of that fact.

People around here are talking about the need of taxpayers to pay for preschool for all 4 year olds. They think by putting kids in school earlier, the end product will be better. These are our children, not cattle being taken to a feed lot. You can not force education. It is a journey that one takes, because they find value in it. It is not a race. Starting earlier does not mean finishing earlier. It is learning. Why the hell would you ever want to finish learning? The early years should be devoted to play and exploration. A young child should not be prepared for factory style education at ages of 3 and 4, and taxpayers should not be paying for it. If you feel the need to teach your child to ask permission to pee, to sit on the floor, and to never speak without first raising their hand, by all means teach them these lessons at home, but that is not an education that I want for my children.

At the same time people are discussing making taxpayers pick up the bill for what parents should be doing at home on their own, they are also complaining that taxpayers currently pay for some highschool students to take college entrance exams. Some students are even taking classes at their local community colleges that are not offered in their highschools. This has some people really upset. They don't want to be paying for somebody else's college education. I am confused. It is okay to pay for preschool, to push children whose brains are not yet developed to learn in a style in which they are being taught, but we shouldn't encourage and help pay for young adults who wish to continue their education by taking classes that are not offered at their high schools? This type of thinking is one of the many reasons that this country has serious problems.