EDITORIAL: Strings attached to federal money

However, anytime grant money is offered by the federal government there are strings attached. This particular grant program has 18 pages of federal requirements such as mandating full daycare, extensive testing, and data collection on children who are only four-years-old. As a grantee, you have to follow their rules and fit your program into their structure. And once funding is no longer provided for this structure it is not so easy to dismantle or modify, based on adjusted revenue.

Pence is not saying early childhood education is not a priority. In fact, Indiana has already begun pilot programs to assist some of our state’s most vulnerable children. During this effort the state will be able to examine the merits of various aspects of the programs to see what’s working and what’s not working. The ultimate goal is to develop a successful pre-K program that can be rolled out all across Indiana.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz is right when she says that Indiana is lacking educational infrastructure to meet our needs for early childhood education. The federal grant could go a long way in building that infrastructure. But Pence wants to make sure that we begin with a solid foundation, a foundation that is properly cured by trial and error during a period where adjustments and corrections are more manageable on a smaller scale.

Our federal government is no less caring about our youth than the governor of our state. Those in Washington can observe the progress we are currently making in improving pre-K education in Indiana. If what we build here in Indiana is successful, the federal government will want to jump on the bandwagon and encourage other states to follow our example. If and when leadership in Indiana needs financial assistance to make a great program even better we must trust that the federal government will toss those coins toward a tested program in the Hoosier state instead of down the dry well of a failed program elsewhere.