A new report in the Behavioral Science and Policy Journal raises compelling questions about whether or not publicly funded pre-K programs — programs that are championed by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — are in the best interest of American children, their taxpaying parents, and indeed all taxpayers.

The study was published this week by two Vanderbilt University professors and is entitled “Evidence for the Benefits of State Prekindergarten Programs: Myth & Misrepresentation.” It found that “magical thinking” relative to publicly funded pre-K programs is failing young children and the taxpayer. “Currently available research raises real questions about whether most state pre-K programs do anything more than boost four-year-olds’ academic cognitive skills to where they would be by the end of kindergarten anyway,” the study also found.

The pay-to-play scandals being investigated by the FBI should shine a very bright light on Hillary’s positions on pre-K programs.

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This revelation is compelling, considering the amount of money taken from taxpayers to fund these programs. Magical thinking apparently gets really expensive.

Not including incentive payments to the states for starting pre-K programs, the federal government and the states annually spend about $34 billion on pre-K programs — and that amount grows almost every year, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

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About $8 billion each year goes toward the Head Start early education program — which was instituted during Bill Clinton’s presidency and for which Hillary Clinton has voiced considerable support.

Hillary proudly boasts on her website that she “will double the number of children served by Early Head Start and the Early Head Start–Child Care Partnership program” which — according to the results of this week’s study — should concern every parent in America.

A governmental study on the effects of the Head Start program was so dismal that TIME magazine called for an end to it. Erika Christakis, an early childhood expert at Yale’s Child Study Center, wrote in The Atlantic that pre-kindergarten is “crushing” kids, citing an “overreliance on direct instruction and repetitive, poorly structured pedagogy” as the “likely culprits.”

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No one can dispute the fact that access to child care for all parents is an important issue, one that garners significant attention during presidential campaigns. And some children do benefit from early learning programs. But consider the following:

The American Federation of Teachers’ super PAC — which donated $1.6 million to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and more than $2 million to Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign — also wants to significantly expand publicly funded pre-K programs. It proposes expansions that would authorize $27 billion in mandatory funding that incentivizes states to expand preschool.

The pay-to-play scandals now being investigated by the FBI should shine a very bright light on Hillary Clinton’s positions on pre-K programs. Does Clinton support the expansion of pre-K programs because she truly believes they are good for our children? Or is she simply pushing for expanding failing and disastrously expensive programs because she received millions from a super PAC expecting the classic quid pro quo?

The answer appears to be obvious.

The author, a father of one, is based in Wisconsin.