HUFFINGTON
08.26.12
AP PHOTO/AL GOLDIS (HUNT)
SMART START?
IS IT POSSIBLE to lower the costs
of pre-K and still retain the qualities that make it so beneficial to
low-income children? In the kidfilled courtyard of the Frank Porter
Graham Institute, Kate Gallagher
offered a blunt reply: “No.”
Many advocates hope that the
November elections might bring in
more legislators willing to raise taxes on people in the upper income
bracket. Last spring in Raleigh, Governor Bev Perdue attempted something along those lines when she
proposed a sales-tax hike of threequarters of a cent. To no one’s surprise, the Republican legislature
shot her down. Thom Thillis, the
speaker of the house, called her plan
“more of the same failed approach
that led to the fiscal mess the Republican legislative majority inherited.”
Recently, local politicians in both
parties have accused each other of
exploiting the debate for political
gain. Democrats say that Republicans have tried to play on people’s
fear of Big Government; Republicans say that Democrats have
pandered to people’s affection for
children without providing enough
evidence that the system actually
works. In an attempt to save it,
some advocates have tried to tamp
down the rhetoric, noting that one
Above: Former
N.C. Gov. Jim
Hunt talks
about early
education in
2007. Left:
Attorney Robb
Leandro is an
advocate of
early childcare
education.
of the most outspoken supporters
of North Carolina Pre-K is Robert
Orr, a retired state Supreme Court
justice and a Republican. They
also point to Governor Jim Hunt,
a popular Democratic governor
who helped lay the foundations
for the state’s investments in early
childhood education back in the
90s and recently pushed to save
the program by befriending Justin
Burr, a Republican legislator 50
years his junior.
Robb Leandro, a 33-year-old
lawyer in Raleigh, has a unique per-