A North Carolina activist judge ruled that the state budget was unconstitutional, because republicans had put a cap on a glorified, taxpayer funded daycare program. The News and Observer Reports the following:
Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning Jr. issued an order Monday that the state cannot implement any barrier or regulation that prevents eligible at-risk children from enrolling in the state's pre-kindergarten program, previously known as More at Four.
Manning cited a provision in the new law spelling out a 20 percent cap for at-risk children, which would dramatically reduce the number of slots for them. The budget also cut the program's budget by 20 percent, or $32 million, and specified that families who are not "at risk" would be charged copayments
Mind you this program is designed for 4 year olds. And we all know how valuable an education is at four. If it weren’t for Judge Manning’s intercession, children couldn’t become connoisseurs of paste; finger painting masterpieces would be lost to the world; and remedial pigtail pulling would have to wait until kindergarten.
Who in their right mind would deny four year olds this sound basic education? Certainly, not Judge Howard E. Manning, Jr. defender of toddlers:
"This case is about the individual right of every child to have the equal opportunity to obtain a sound basic education," Manning wrote in the order. "The constitutional right belongs to the child, not to the adults. Each at-risk four-year-old that appears at the doors of the [North Carolina pre-kindergarten] program this fall is a defenseless, fragile child whose background of poverty or disability places the child at-risk of subsequent academic failure."
Because if we don’t catch these children at four, their lives will be irredeemable.
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