State official: Early education program frees parents to work

The state government’s department for promoting early childhood education considers babysitting to be one of the major benefits of state-funded pre-kindergarten programs, an official told Michigan state legislators at a committee hearing.

“Our primary goal is to help provide supports so that individuals can be successful and earn a skill certificate or have a job, that they have the child care supports that are necessary to be successful in that while reducing the costs that they have,” Lisa Brewer Walraven, director of child development and care at the Michigan Department of Learning, Education, Advancement, and Potential, said during testimony Feb. 3.

Responding to questions from Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, Walraven reiterated a frequent claim that pre-K programs lead to higher student achievement, but she kept her emphasis on the daycare benefits for parents in the workforce.

“We know from research that children who participate in early learning programs do develop skills, including social skills,” said Walraven. The department, she told the joint oversight committee of the Michigan House of Representatives, takes pride in “keeping those children in programs so parents can go to work.” Walraven’s exchange with Carra can be heard around the one-hour mark of the hearing.

Carra expressed skepticism during the hearing that government is doing an effective job of “educating the leaders of tomorrow,” and a growing body of research supports the idea that proponents have overstated the academic benefits of government pre-K programs while ignoring the downsides for overall child development.

“The more time children spent in child care from birth to age four-and-a-half, the more adults tended to rate them, both at age four-and-a-half and at kindergarten, as less likely to get along with others, as more assertive, as disobedient, and as aggressive,” according to a study in the July/August issue of Child Development, as summarized by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in 2003.

Federal officials offered a similar summary of a different research project in 2007: “The study authors also found that the more time children spent in center-based care before kindergarten, the more likely their sixth-grade teachers were to report such problem behaviors as ‘gets in many fights,’ ‘disobedient at school,’ and ‘argues a lot.’” Researchers also found that “parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development than was type, quantity, or quality, of child care.”

Academic benefits from preschool activity appear to be fleeting, as Michigan Capitol Confidential reported in March 2025, with benefits generally disappearing by second or third grade.

Scores on national and state standardized tests show little improvement and in some cases declines, even as officials have spent more and more on early education programs over the years.

“MiLEAP’s number one accomplishment is taking children away from their parents and entrusting them to the care of government earlier and longer,” Carra told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. The more responsibility the state assumes, he said, the more the family unit deteriorates and liberty is lost.

“This is an abuse of power and clearly not something I support,” Carra said.

The Department of Learning, Education, Advancement, and Potential’s combined budget for 2024 and 2025 was $1.34 billion. Gov. Whitmer established the department in 2023 with a mandate “to help families with young children get access to quality, affordable child care by coordinating resources for Michigan’s youngest learners.”

“There is little research supporting the benefits of early child care on future student outcomes, and government preschool already exists for families that need it most,” said Molly Macek, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Improving K-12 education, Macek added, requires a more effective use of taxpayer dollars.

MiLEAP did not respond to an email seeking comment.