we will start with you kerry mcdonald. under this proposal, do you think this gives parents -- certainly the funding, but does it give them the maximum flexibility to make the decision for their kids? guest: it is similar to the head start program where the government is involved in these preschool programs in terms of deciding what the curriculum is, deciding what the student-teacher ratio is, making expectations around teacher certification. that does limit family choices. a lot of families might say i don't need my three-year-old being taught by someone with a bachelors degree and maybe i don't even want my three-year-old taught academic skills anyway, i want them to play and enjoy being outside with friends during their preschool time. this would limit a lot of parents' choices. host: halley potter, will it give parents more choices? guest: it absolutely will. when washington, d.c. had universal pre-k for three-year-olds and four-year-olds created, we thought the number of mothers participating -- we saw that the numbe

host: kerry mcdonald, they look at analysis by mark zandi. they write that the families plan will boost the economy by increasing labor force participation and educational attainment while addressing income inequality. your thoughts? guest: the penn warden budget model indicates that president biden's estimate of $200 billion for the universal education opponent -- education component is a very low estimate, that it will cost much more and as a result it will bring down gdp. it will raise debt. this will put a burden on american families overall when we are distance at devising entrepreneurship -- when we are disincentivizing entrepreneurship. two of the randomized controlled studies of the existing preschool program, the gold standard of results in these programs is the tennessee pre-k program that found initial gains and academics for those students who participated in the preschool program, those gains were gone by kindergarten. in third grade, they found the control group was outperforming the students who participated in that government

we will start with you kerry mcdonald. this proposal, do you think this gives parents -- certainly the funding, but does it give them the maximum flexibility to make the decision for their kids? guest: it is similar to the head start program where the government is involved in these preschool programs in terms of deciding what the curriculum is, deciding what the student-teacher ratio is, making expectations around teacher certification. that does limit family choices. a lot of families might say i don't need my three-year-old being taught by someone with a bachelors degree and maybe i don't even want my three-year-old taught academic skills anyway, i want them to play and enjoy being outside with friends during their preschool time. this would limit a lot of parents' choices. host: halley potter, will it give parents more choices? guest: it absolutely will. when washington, d.c. had universal pre-k for three-year-olds and four-year-olds created, we thought the number of mothers participating -- we saw that the number of m

kerry mcdonald, what is your take on the president's proposal? guest: the american family plan is a massive expansion of government into family life and into the lives of young children. i think there is a lot of things wrong with this plan and why i would oppose it. starting with the fact that the federal government has no constitutional role in education. the constitution mentions education nowhere and this should be a state and local issue. the federal government should not be expanding its role in education. i think the other thing to think about is we already have k-12 government schooling and it is not serving many kids. recent scores on the national assessment for educational progress show declining scores in reading and math. we are not already serving the kids we need to be serving through our existing government schooling. why would we want to go ahead and expand it? our current programs, namely the head start program that costs taxpayers $10 billion every year is not serving students well. there are preliminary gains in preschool but t

kerry mcdonald is with the cato institute. she's a scholar there. she is a senior education fellow at the foundation for economic education. also, halley potter with the century foundation. thank you for joining t