California Fair Share is calling for expanded spending on early childhood education and mandatory preschool.

This “nonpartisan” group claims to be pushing progressive values on its IRS I-9 form. And when doing a Google search of “Start Strong for America’s Children Act,” the first selection is the U.S. Democrat’s Committee on Education and the Workforce, led by U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-CA.

“We believe that everyone deserves a fair shot in life, and that starts with a quality education,” California Fair Share says on its website. “Unfortunately, some in Congress are moving to cut billions from education. Congress already made deep cuts in early 2013 that will slash programs for 1.2 million kids and take 30,000 teachers out of classrooms.”

President Obama proposed significantly increasing federal spending on early childhood education and care as part of his drive for a “cradle-to-career” government-controlled education system, in February 2013.

“Expanding federal intervention in education to include infants, toddlers, and three-year-olds and four-year olds will crowd out private preschools, increase costs for taxpayers, and fail to create lasting academic benefits for children,” the Heritage Foundation said in response.

Welcome to more government expansion, brought to you by “nonpartisan” FairShare.org, “researching and organizing around critical issues such as economic fairness, health care, global security and education reform.”

California’s universal preschool

California already passed a cradle-to-career Resolution, ACR 45 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, in support of President Obama’s proposal.

In May during an Assembly session which I attended, Weber, a retired African-American Studies professor, said the purpose of ACR 45 was to boost early childhood education funding in order to get children into day care and educational programs even before preschool.

Neglecting such development “could prove very harmful to the future of these children, especially African-American males,” the Assembly Black Caucus noted. The Assembly Black Caucus is also made up of all Democrats.

“Head Start, the flagship pre-kindergarten program introduced in 1965, has been a $166 billion failure,” according to Andrew Coulsen, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.

“But by the end of the first grade, even those few effects have disappeared, according to the follow-up released this month,” Coulsen said. “Out of 44 separate cognitive tests given to former Head Start students at the end of the first grade, only two showed even marginally significant effects. The other 42 showed no statistically significant effect at all.”

Coulsen also cited multiple studies finding that, while Head Start had some initial positive effects, most of those were not sustained into elementary school.

Weber’s justification for ACR 45 was interesting:

“A child who attends quality early care and education programs is less likely to be arrested and more likely to earn higher incomes than a child who does not, and the opportunity to participate in such programs prepares children to attain a higher standard of living as adults and to become members of the high-skilled workforce that is critical to our nation’s economic future.

“If we are only looking at preschool beginning at age 2-1/2 to three, we are missing a significant part of time when we should be stimulating the child.” 

Weber also explained of parenting classes, “Of all the things we are licensed to do, drive a car, own a business, we basically give birth to children with no training or background or assistance. That is why parenting classes are important.”

One such group appears to be Young Invincibles, “a national organization representing 18- to 34-year-old Americans on the issues of affordable health care, employment and college affordability.”

Read the fine print, and the Young Invincibles website also says, “Young Invincibles is a national organization committed to mobilizing and expanding opportunities for young adults between 18 and 34 years of age on issues like higher education, health care, and jobs.”

Its website, Healthy Young America, claims to be part of the group’s outreach. “In some places, Young Invincibles will also serve as a state-funded navigator for the Affordable Care Act.”

Ah, now I get it.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are practically throwing money at groups interested in being Obamacare navigators.  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services  announced “Funding Opportunity Announcement on the availability of up to $54 million in cooperative agreements to fund Navigators in Federally-facilitated or State Partnership Marketplaces,” the CCMS website says. “The Affordable Care Act requires Marketplaces to establish a Navigator program to help consumers understand new coverage options and find the most affordable coverage that meets their health care needs.”

Reach out for the handout

And to drive home this “outreach,” Jennifer Mishory, deputy director and a founding staffer of Young Invincibles, wrote a recent op ed for the San Francisco Chronicle about the new insurance exchanges and Medicaid options under Obamacare. Mishory said these health exchanges “will make affordable coverage available to millions of uninsured Americans.”

The subtitle in the story told a slightly different story, and perhaps the one which goes to the heart of the true purpose of Obamacare: “The health care mandate takes effect soon, allowing people to compare and buy policies, but many people are unaware of available subsidies and Medicaid coverage.”

Obamacare is really just a giant wealth equalizer, and conduit for government subsidies.

Mishory said The Young Invincibles  will be serving as a “state funded navigator” for the ACA.

Young Invincibles

According to the Young Invincibles website,  Co-Founders Ari Matusiak and Aaron Smith, and a few law school friends created Young Invincibles “motivated by the recognition that young people’s voices were not being heard in the debate over health care reform.”

Only Ari Matusiak isn’t just your average entrepreneur — Matusiak works for the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Private Sector Engagement.

Matusiak also served as a fellow on Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

And to think that Martha Stewart went to prison for insider trading…

Funding for Young Invincibles

“YI is fiscally sponsored by the Center for Community Change, a longstanding organization committed to building the power and capacity of low-income people across the country,” the website says.

The Center for Community Change is a scary, far left group, reminiscent of ACORN. Even the address on the Young Invincibles website says:

Young Invincibles

c/o Center for Community Change
1536 U St. NW
Washington, DC 20009

I looked on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar for ‘Young Invincibles’, and ‘Healthy Young America’, but found nothing.

However, their funder, the Center for Community Change came up in Guidestar — claiming to be a “community organizer.” The IRS form 990 showed the group to have a $12 million  to $14 million yearly budget, made up of grants and contributions. The CCC said its mission is “to build the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low income people of color, to change their communities and public policies for the better.”

The Center for Community Change pays its community organizers well. The director makes more than $200,000 annually. And the five other administrative directors draw salaries of $134,000 up to $163,000.

The group spends a great amount of money on travel, offices, employee benefits, a pension plan, and spends $700,000 up to $1 million on lobbying.

They gave numerous grants to the Alliance For a Just Society, a politically-left group, focused on health care, immigration, and social and economic justice.

Government health care – the buck starts here

Even the Department of Health and Human Services offers opportunities to get government money with their offer to “Learn about available grants to assist with implementation of various aspects of ACA.”

“Search grants.gov for information about funding opportunities related to ACA including Health Information Technology (HIT) and other areas,” the HHS website says.

This is just the tip of the Obamacare iceberg. These groups are often inter-connected, and exist solely to fund other politically-left justice groups.