April 24, 2015 12:58 PM

Smith: Beware the Kindergarten Communists!

From the Left: QR’s liberal columnist Glenn W. Smith argues it is past time to reject what he terms the 'fantasies and fever dreams' of the extreme Right, like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's Tea Party advisory group's fears that pre-kindergarten is a godless plot to steal our children.

I wish we could dismiss the paranoid fantasies and fever dreams of the extreme Right in Texas. But we can’t because those nightmares, however detached from reality, are driving Texas policy – from education to health care.

This week Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s Tea Party advisory group came to us with warnings that an expanded pre-kindergarten proposal – generally backed by everybody but the extremists – is a godless, socialistic plot to steal our children from us. I am not exaggerating. Here is precisely what they said:

“We are experimenting at great cost to taxpayers with a program that removes our young people from homes and half-day religious preschools and mothers' day out programs to a Godless environment with only evidence showing absolutely NO LONG TERM BENEFITS beyond the 1st grade.”

Removes our young people from homes? Do they really believe expanded pre-kindergarten will empower someone to kidnap children from the homes of God-fearing Texans and lock them up with pagan teachers who have magic soul-capturing boxes designed by the Devil?

The complete column from Glenn W. Smith can be found in the R&D Department.

By Glenn W. Smith