Mayor Julián Castro gave a “State of the City” address on March 23, 2012, as covered by the San Antonio Express-News in “Mayor calls for investing in education.”
Castro proposed a 1/8 cent tax increase (on the November 6 ballot) that would raise about $24 million per year to be spent on early childhood education — building two new education centers and adding money to existing public school early childhood programs.
For a positive viewpoint on Castro’s “Brainpower Initiative,” see The Rivard Report‘s “Fixing Public Schools Takes a City. Is Mayor Castro’s ‘Brainpower Initiative’ Just a Start?”
For a skeptical viewpoint on the long term impact of early childhood education, see “Head Start, A Case Study in the Unreliability of Government Research” on Jay P. Greene’s Blog.
For a somewhat balanced viewpoint, see “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” on George Block’s mySanAntonio.com blog.
Would it be beneficial to spend more money on early childhood education, even if it means raising the sales tax? Will that spending have a lasting effect — enough to impact dropout rates and college readiness?
