With the initial cuts in state budgets on the horizon across the country, 2011 has been a landmark year for political machines everywhere to flex their muscles. By now we are all familiar with the state employees’ unions staging mass protests in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere, all in an extremely well organized attempt to keep state money flowing into their coffers.
North Carolina, on the other hand, has been largely immune to such organized protests from special interests—or has it?
Over the course of the past few months the halls of the General Assembly have been flooded with Smart Start administrators and supporters – often towing along an unwitting child – desperately lobbying legislators to keep funding their programs and painting an extremely dire picture of what would happen if they didn’t.
Civitas has acquired Smart Start’s internal lobbying documents that detail every minute aspect of the Smart Start lobbying effort, throwing open the curtain on a sophisticated political machine masquerading as a grassroots support effort.
In these documents the North Carolina Partnership for Children (NCPC) directs local partnerships in a well-coordinated PR campaign to penetrate all levels of North Carolina’s media in order to prop up a glorified image of the Smart Start infrastructure, and to unleash a relentless assault of lobbying on state senators and representatives.
Highlights of the documents include:
- Letter Writing Campaign:
- Directing all 77 Local Partnerships to fill out 100 testimonial postcards and send them to legislators. This effort, if successful, would send nearly 8,000 letters to state legislators.
- NCPC has directed its partnerships to lobby parents into participating in their political machine. The document states, “Ask parents to handwrite a note to their legislator telling them what Smart Start means to them and asking them to preserve Smart Start.”
- Commenting on Articles in the Media:
- NCPC is concerned that a large number of honest opinion comments on online newspaper articles discussing Smart Start (left by ordinary people) are too negative, and thus directs the Local Partnerships to plant artificial positive comments in each article to give an appearance of support for Smart Start.
- NCPC’s goal is to have 10 “positive” comments per article discussing Smart Start and selects various regions of partnerships to be responsible for positing these planted comments at various dates from March through May.
- Convincing Local Papers to Produce Pro-Smart Start Editorials:
- NCPC has instructed the Local Partnerships to meet with the editorial boards of all the local papers throughout the state. As they describe it, the “goal is to have an editorial calling on legislators to preserve Smart Start.” The document then lists the major local papers and the local partnership in charge of lobbying them.
- Tuesdays for Tots:
- This is NCPC’s ongoing lobby day at the General Assembly. Parents, providers, and even children are bused in from different locations around the state to lobby legislators to keep Smart Start.
All of these efforts are focused to put forth the public appearance of a grassroots movement for Smart Start, but this document strips that illusion away. Orchestrated in the top-down fashion that Smart Start is built upon, these efforts are directed by the very people who would be losing their highly paid and often redundant positions, not concerned citizens or parents. Furthermore, these people are paid with taxpayer money; the time and effort put into this lobbying machine is taxpayer dollars going out the window. Instead of serving the children, administrators are serving themselves, putting an awful lot of effort into preserving the status quo of their already ineffectual bureaucracy.
The complete lobbying document can be found here.
If ever Civitas’ agenda was in doubt, this ‘expose’ ends the debate.
First, it was SMART START WASTES SUBSIDY DOLLARS AND SENDS CHILDREN HOME! when in fact, the reason the contractor (not Smart Start) had to terminate children was a budget cut. Then it was SMART START WASTES TAX DOLLARS ON SALARIES! without mentioning the private funds being used for its payroll. Then we read about THE EXORBITANT OVERHEAD COSTS IN SMART START’S OPERATIONS COMPARED TO DSS! despite the two systems providing separate and dissimilar services, the author not reporting DSS’ actual external administrative costs, DSS’ reversion of millions of unspent dollars vs. Smart Start’s economic precision, and the important fact that DSS’ inabilities necessitated the creation of Smart Start to begin with.
Now we learn that local advocates, and yes, employees of the private nonprofit agencies that administer local Smart Start funds, are actively trying to make the case for protecting the welfare of young children – and it’s supposed to be scandalous because an advocacy plan has been disseminated by the central agency in Raleigh. I didn’t catch where this author emphasized that no Smart Start-funded employee advocates on the taxpayer’s dime. And the author’s mention of “an unwitting child” is a transparently immature device, as though he can see into the minds of participating children, who, along with their parents, have nothing at stake in this debate.
Perhaps the most laughable claim is that union protests and Smart Start advocacy are not really grassroots movements and have special interest-backing in common. Not only is there no evidence for this claim, but a simple query of participants would prove otherwise.
The hallmark of the entire movement to destroy the social safety net, eliminate crucial public services, and shrink government has been bought and paid for by astro-turf proxies. In Wisconsin, it’s the Koch’s. (“Scott, David Koch here.”) In North Carolina, we have the Popes. The John W. Pope Civitas Institute and its agenda-driven operatives are funded by, and are in service to the Popes.
You can fairly accuse child advocates of simultaneously trying to protect their good work and their jobs, but at least, they work for the common good. There is no such evidence from the Andrews at Civitas. Smart Start professionals model their work on T. Berry Brazelton and Marian Wright Edelman. By all appearances, the young bucks at Civitas only aspire to be James O’Keefe.
I respectfully disagree with the article’s analysis. The “Telling Our Story” document you’ve posted states repeatedly that ‘Smart Start Cost Principles’ prohibit the use of State funds or State-purchased equipment for these activities. If all these people are spending personal time and expense making phone calls or taking vacation days to go to Raleigh and meet with legislators to preserve critical early childhood services, isn’t that actually more meaningful than articles by people paid to write them? I don’t see this as a ‘Massive Political Machine’ as you put it. I see it as an attempt at a coordinated and honest defense against a Massive Political Attack from multiple sources aiming to eliminate a successful program with (in some cases) misleading information.
The way I see it, encouraging parents to “handwrite a note to their legislator telling them what Smart Start means to them” doesn’t violate any law or ‘cost principle.’ They’re telling people who may not know that services for health screenings or early intervention or parenting classes or subsidized child care might be cut, and encouraging these citizens to engage with their legislators. NOTHING in this memo (or encouraged by it) is dishonest or illegal. Why would you imply that Smart Start employees (not on work time) or parents of small children have ANY LESS RIGHT to contact their legislators than Civitas had to give a ‘Smart Start presentation’ directly to the legislators in Raleigh on Feb 22, 2011?
People generally do not go to work for nonprofits (including Smart Start) to get rich. The AVERAGE SS Local Partnership employee makes less than $37K. Did it ever occur to you that many of these people work for Smart Start because they are passionate about serving children and families? Or that they care enough to post comments online or visit legislators because they genuinely want to preserve independently proven and locally chosen services for NC’s young children?
Civitas’ own site claims that its goal is to “provide research, information and training to educate and inform citizens about policy issues affecting them, enabling them to make more effective and informed decisions through the democratic process.” I believe democracy includes hearing BOTH sides of an issue. I recently learned that some comments on the Civitas site are being ‘moderated’ (screened) so that independent evidence and opinions that contradict Civitas’ posted articles (or other readers’ comments) are not posted. (I am not talking about comments that are profane or vulgar, just dissenting opinions.) Many websites that are moderated have sufficient integrity to disclose that fact so that users can be made aware of selective screening by the host. I would encourage Civitas to do the same if it continues to share only the opinions that do not seriously call Civitas’ portrayal of Smart Start into question.
So far you have two of the ten “positive” letters from the Smart Start answering machine, expect at least eight more. I would like to see just one response from a Smart Start supporter that offers a recommendation to improve the Smart Start system. Everyone else in the state, both public and private entities are cutting costs and looking for ways to be more efficent but not
Smart Start. They are just trying to defend the status quo. Civitas is on target, it’s not about the children; it’s about the self promotion and self-perpetuate of Smart Start. Oh yes, as a by-product some children recieve services.
Smart Start is quite accustomed to cutting costs and finding ways to be more efficient; they’ve been doing it for some time now. The program has had cuts that total $49M over the past decade. It is generally accepted that SS will have to manage with additional cuts this year just like every other state-supported program (though few of those are true public/private partnerships that garner additional millions annually from non-State grants and contributions). I think most supporters would accept the SS cuts proposed in the Governor’s budget.
One would think that Smart Start employees who write so well, even though lacking any understanding of economic reality, should be able to find a real job in the private sector. But my experience tells me that left-wing ideologues don’t get along well with co-workers who are not also left-wing ideologues and most businesses don’t need those problems in their workforce. Maybe that’s why they all gravitate toward government or tax-exempt jobs. You know, “birds of a feather…..”
You think SS supporters don’t understand economic reality? Investments in quality early childhood programs pay significant dividends, but you don’t have to take Smart Start’s word for it.
Mission: Readiness is a non-partisan organization led by SENIOR RETIRED MILITARY LEADERS trying to ensure continued American security and prosperity. Here is a quote from their website:
“The path to success does not begin at age 17. The earliest months and years of life are a crucial time when we build the foundation of children’s character, how they relate to others and how they learn. Long-term research shows that quality early childhood education raises graduation rates by up to 44%. Research further shows that kids who fail to get it are 70% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime by age 18, making them potentially unfit for service and a threat to their communities. Furthermore, every dollar invested in quality early childhood programs can save $16.
Saving $16 in avoidable costs down the road for every $1 spent now… that’s the kind of ROI this State needs, now more than ever.
FYI, the Executive Advisory Council for Mission: Readiness is composed of over 200 senior retired US military leaders including several past members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and past Supreme Allied Commanders of NATO. How are you going to discredit them?
Since Blackburn’s article attempts to assault the credibility of Smart Start administrators and demean their motives [“Instead of serving the children, administrators are serving themselves,” “….putting an awful lot of effort into preserving the status quo of their already ineffectual bureaucracy.”] it’s fair to explore his own credentials, credibility, motives and character.
From his twitter feed we learn that he is ‘scuba certified,’ that as recently as last fall, he was still enrolled in college, and that he is 22 years old.
messages from Andrew Blackburn:
“First time watching a kid panic while scuba diving. Really funny.” 2:21 PM Feb 24th, 2010 via txt
“So a guy on my shift calls in sick today, which means instead of sitting in the office and reading a book i actually have to do work…” Tuesday, March 02, 2010 1:28:59 PM via txt
There you have the voice – in the first person – of one who questions the ethics of Smart Start administrators and the legitimacy of the program.
Kay H…. You’ve really impressed your audience. And what was your point exactly? That there’s something nefarious about being scuba certified, or young? Your desperate attempts to discredit the author for relaying FACTS says a considerable bit about your own character. You appear thoroughly foolish.
P.S. you need to talk to your folks… You only have 5 pro-Smart Start comments up here. NCPC is gonna get upset if you don’t meet that 10 comment quota!
Russell Kirk:
Blackburn provides no facts, just hyperbolic opinion. (Examples given above. Read them, or better yet, go back to the original article.)
Should we believe military commanders, research scientists, early education experts, business leaders, and economists….or a scuba instructor who mocks panicked children?
Nothing nefarious at all.
Mr. Kirk, while I appreciate your defense of Mr. Blackburn’s twitter posts, it is unnecessary. I do not have a personal twitter account. Anybody is more than welcome to follow me at my professional twitter @ResPublicaNC, but I only use it for news updates, and do not post myself, so they will find it rather droll.
I am supportive of Smart Start and feel it is a valuable investment for NC children. I do feel like children are benefiting from the program and that making large cuts to funding or eliminating the program will have a detrimental impact on our most vulnerable citizens. We will only get out of our children what we “invest in them.” I feel like people/government don’t always focus as much as they should on long-term, or preventative care when it comes to the distribution of money in many different areas. With that being said, in any “debate” over what is right or wrong both parties will likely have valid points related to their facts, ideas or beliefs on the subject matter and they will defend them either way.
In response to the statement above, “I would like to see just one response from a Smart Start supporter that offers a recommendation to improve the Smart Start system.” I have a couple questions…
In what way do you think taking money away from Smart Start and other early childhood development programs would help them to become more efficient and productive for our children?
Is there really a point in talking about what Smart Start plans on doing to improve the current system to people who completely oppose the program and don’t find in value in it in the first place? (I view this subject a couple of different ways but, would like to hear your honest opinion)
Also, do supporters of Civitas truly value children and believe in the importance of early childhood education for ALL children, not just the privileged children and if so how?
As I mentioned above I would appreciate your honest, tactful opinions.
Whitney
Mr. Blackburn: You’ve got an imposter then. Civitas activities, J. Locke promotions, GOP in state government, are all there for the public to access on the twitter feed for Andrew Blackburn.
Kay H:
Your mantra is ours – we need childcare investment! Your citing military experts, etc. is a moot point because we are in agreement.
However, where we differ is HOW we invest. Smart Start unfortunately is not very efficient vis-a-vis other very similar (at times identical) government entities such as DCD. Especially under these severe economic circumstances we must be good stewards of public money and use that funding where it will be most efficient and effective. That’s all we’ve been saying.
Blackburn’s point of the organization of the lobbying effort is very relevant and while you claim that none of that money comes from public funds, I still don’t think that helps your case. One of your selling points I’ve heard repeated over and over is “leveraging money into our community”, well it seems that “leveraged” money goes towards lobbying efforts (and padding salaries). Not a very compelling argument for leveraging money.
Someone is actually assaulting the author based on a Twitter feed? And not recent Twitters, but from a year ago? How about you bring the topic back around to the issues? Such as the fact that Smart Start mismanaged money.
Help those of us who are not that familiar with DSS and their “reversion of millions of unspent dollars” and “inabilities” which necessitated the creation of Smart Start to understand that issue. From an outsiders view, why would the State of NC need two agencies to handle the disbursement of these funds? Is there overlap of services? Who determines which family gets DSS money and which gets Smart Start money? Aren’t we spending administration fees for both agencies to handle the same systems? Does Smart Start certify families for services or is the money for subsidy passing through Smart Start and onto the county for DSS to certify and disburse funds?
There seems to be a lot of discussion of the need for subsidy funds for low income working families. I would assume this has been a service for families for many years. I would also assume everyone would agree that the most efficient process with the least overhead that would allow the most dollars to flow directly to families is the goal.
I had no idea that this was one of the reasons for the creation of Smart Start. I had heard it was to allow individual counties to determine the needs of their own child care community and each county was to spend those monies independently. So my question is…how much of the budget goes to subsidy and why can’t those funds be included in the other money that goes to DSS? Wouldn’t that save money and help the budget crisis?
Jack Thompson:
So you are going to fall back on claims of mismanagement. You claim it is a fact, yet you provide no facts, other than your own unfounded statement. Does this sound like mismanagement (note – these are actual facts):
– In the past 10 years, Local Partnerships and NCPC have been independently audited by the Office of the State Auditor and/or contracted CPA firms over 450 times.
– In the past 8 years, NCPC has had no audit findings.
– In the past 2 years, not a single Local Partnership has had any audit findings.
– Local Partnerships comply with the legislative 8% statewide cap on administrative expenses.
– The Smart Start program has been TWICE awarded the State Treasurer’s Award for Excellence in Financial Management.
– Smart Start (as currently structured) has achieved important results for children that Civitas claims it is no longer disputing as proven and effective.
Personally, I fail to see the mismanagement?
Kay:
I greatly appreciate your honest questions and attempt to encourage constructive discussion. Smart Start WAS created, as you put it, to ‘allow individual counties to determine their needs.’ The legislation that created Smart Start stated that it should develop and provide “high-quality early childhood education and development services for children and families.” The key to that phrase is HIGH-QUALITY, and it is repeated a number of times in SS legislation.
As I understand it, in some cases, counties determined that families needed help with quality subsidized care for children with special needs or other circumstances that did not qualify for existing DSS subsidies. SS had flexibility to help more families in need at the county level that DSS did not. So yes, SS spends millions of dollars on subsidized child care and preschool programs, but it also spends millions more working with existing child care facilities to increase quality, and providing health and family support services to fill gaps in their communities.
Back to the importance of quality… The scientific research in early childhood shows amazing benefits for kids in HIGH QUALITY programs, NOT just ANY programs. In other words, kids need age-appropriate activities that stimulate development and learning, not babysitting. DSS seems to be perfectly content to put many children in low quality (1-Star) facilities. And they do. Smart Start tries to focus subsidy dollars in 4 & 5-Star facilities. If you do not know the difference between a 1-Star and 5-Star facility… it is significant. Go visit one of each in your county and see for yourself.
Some subsidy quality results:
– 10 years ago, 30% of kids whose families received subsidies for child care were in 4 or 5-Star programs; now it is 74%.
– 10 years ago, 61% of kids from low-income families with special needs were in high quality care; now it is 94%.
I hope this helps explain how SS is NOT doing the same thing as DSS. In fact, what Smart Start is doing is much more complex and locally responsive, both in ensuring quality services and offering a variety of support services to child care providers and families that are well beyond the scope of what DSS does.
John William, I completely agree with you. I worked in a five start child care facility while in college and there is a huge difference in quality. We need Smart Start. I think it is also important to mention that DSS has waiting lists in most counties for one to three years. By the time children are approved they have bypassed crucial stages in their cognitive, social and emotional development. Smart Start funding ensures that many children who are “pushed aside” for the time being have access to quality care. As you mentioned this is not all they do though! They also spend money improving the quality of existing centers so that ALL children have a chance to succeed, regardless of what part of town they live in.
I am disappointed that I have not received a simple response from anyone at Civitas or even from Platowasright.
Ms. Kelbaugh, before I respond to you I do have a brief question of my own. Where did you get the presumption that we only care for privileged children? I find that highly offensive seeing as how we never gave any inclination towards that notion, and are working to provide more childcare for needy children.
To answer your question, early childcare programs will benefit more under Civitas’ suggested reform. Consolidation under the Division of Child Development (DCD) would allow more money to be available to needy children than is currently provided for under the Smart Start system. This is due to the excessive amount of overhead (administrative costs, etc) that Smart Start pays compared to DCD (which in many senses is an identical government agency). See Andrew Henson’s article “Smart Start Overhead Takes From Children” in the Smart Start Saga portion of our website.
I appreciate your response. I am truly sorry you find my questions as offensive since I am admittedly unfamiliar with your organization and genuinely want to learn more. I guess the first article below gave me the impression that children of lower socio-economic status are not as valued by the cause. If I am correct, Art Pope is a supporter of Civitas who funds a large percentage of the organization and its efforts. I would take that to mean that the values of Civitas are in line with the values of Art Pope. I am glad to hear that you all are supportive of more funding for “needy” children. There will always be issues in funding and allocation of resources when it comes to government spending. We should work to make the most of what we have. I don’t know that I believe cutting Smart Start funding is the best answer but, that is my opinion. The great thing about the US is that you and I have the ability to express our opinions openly. As I mentioned before, I am aware that not everything I read is correct as people often want to prove their own point without listening to others’ views or providing legitimate facts. For this reason, I will continue to do research on Civitas and Smart Start so that I feel confident that my “presumptions” are correct.
Thanks for your time,
Whitney
http://www.ncaeconnections.com/2011/03/independent-digs-into-art-popes-anti.html
http://capwiz.com/nea/nc/issues/alert/?alertid=32828501
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Art_Pope
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/06/1107500/skewed-by-civitas.html
http://www.bluenc.com/use-imagery-propaganda
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/02/23/1073406?sac=Home
One of the greatest myths about DSS subsidy is their efficiency. You should check out the administrative overhead charge for DSS. They range from 15% to as high as 46%. Ask DCD how much “indirect cost”, misleading term for administration, local DSS’s take from the “administration” funding they receive from DCD. Ask why DSS returned over $12,000,000 in subsidy funds last year. A few years ago many DSS agencies overspent their budgets forcing the termination of service to thousands of children. Efficient? Think again.
Man, you folks really picked at a scab here. I have a few questions:
How many people are on the payroll of NCPC and Smart Start? Where did they all come from before there was Smart Start?
What are the executives of NCPC and Smart Start’s political connections?
I think that info would shed more light on the subject.
Jeff,
I know a number of individuals at Smart Start and they are all over the political map, which was, frankly, a surprise. I expected them to be on the far end of the liberal side, but that is simply not true for those I know. One in particular is a long time GOP supporter but has expressed disappointment in the fight Civitas has taken up. I have known him for years and he has told me many times of stories about families being helped by Smart Start and never once did he mention subsidy. I didn’t know what subsidy was until recently and when I asked him about some of the Civitas stories, he simply said he wished people would get to know more about the other programs Smart Start is about.
Civitas, what about the other work they do? Are you advocating throwing out the young children with the bath water?
I work for a Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Organization and I am working on my MSW currently. I deal with survivors every day who rely on these programs to get quality childcare after leaving an abusive relationship so they CAN provide for their child/ren. I am not and never have been employed by NCPFC but, I do recognize the benefits of Smart Start funding and the More at Four Program in NC. I know that DSS in my county has enough to deal with already. Last count there were up to 1,200 children on the waiting list and we are a small county. Many of those families have been on the waiting list for up to three years. By the time they are eligible for services their children are school age. This means, mothers/fathers are unable to work. So, mothers/fathers who can’t work end up relying on the system in various ways anyhow. In this case, not only do the mother’s/father’s suffer-the children suffer as well. This causes a ripple effect. I am wondering how funneling money through the CDC will “fix the problem.” I will do more research on this.