Prekindergarten education in Arkansas took a hit last week from state Republicans.
A draft platform presented to delegates to the Republican Party of Arkansas' state convention had said that parents who want pre-K education for their children should have access to it and that the state should help provide it.
Until Saturday, the idea that early education is one of the best investments a state can make in its children was a fairly bipartisan agreement.
At least in more recent years, people on both sides of the political aisle generally recognized the need, even if they didn't always place the same priority on spending for pre-K.
The fundamental argument is that all children ought to have a chance to enter kindergarten on an equal footing, with poor children as prepared to learn as children from higher-income homes, whose parents can afford to pay for pre-K.
Partisanship tends to come into play only when it comes to paying for this or any other government-supported program.
Arkansas has had state-supported pre-K programs in public schools for well over a decade, but the program only covers children in families whose income is within 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
The state has only put enough money into the programs to cover about half of those who could qualify. The state assists something like 17,500 of the more than 45,000 children who would qualify. Federal and nonprofit programs help another 9,000, but Arkansas still trails woefully in its commitment to pre-K.
Nevertheless, the holdback to greater access to pre-K in Arkansas has really been about the money, not some philosophical divide over education.
That may have changed on Saturday, depending on how elected Republican officials respond to the platform Republicans adopted in convention in Rogers.
What happened was the state Republican Party's outright rejection of the proposed platform language that was supportive of pre-K education.
The party's approved platform is now silent on the issue.
The delegates apparently were hung up on the possibility that pre-K, like kindergarten through grade 12, might somehow become mandatory.
So they opted not to include the issue in the party platform at all.
What does that really mean?
It depends on how seriously the Republicans who get elected this year or who already hold office, say in the governor's office or the state Legislature, take the party's rejection of pre-K language in the platform.
Usually, these platform debates, whether on the state or national level, are serious considerations for conventions. But their importance fades when governing begins.
Take, for example, Donald Trump's apparent lack of interest in most of the platform for the national Republican Party. It was a pretty clear signal that the platform won't necessarily guide the party's nominee, should he win the presidency.
Similarly, you could probably ask just about any Republican in state office to tell you what is in the state party platform and they might know some but not necessarily all of what is in it. The exception to that rule would be the people who actually served on the platform committee and drafted the document presented to the convention.
Otherwise, you might expect the rank-and-file Republicans to know guiding principles, like smaller government or lower taxes and less regulation, but not necessarily the planks of the party platform.
That is, they won't know them until it serves their purposes to use them in some follow-up debate on any given issue.
Earlier this year, as the state Legislature met in Little Rock for its fiscal session, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families made the argument that preschool programs in the state needed an infusion of $43 million to provide better opportunities for 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children who attend the programs.
Otherwise, the advocacy group argued, there might be program cuts and fewer opportunities for fewer Arkansas children.
When the Legislature did add money for the program, it was maybe $3 million more, the first bump since the program was created in 2003.
Obviously, the need for more funding still exists and will be part of the discussion in next year's legislative session and in sessions to follow.
So, it is important how seriously the members of the Republican majorities in both house of the Legislature, not to mention the governor's office, take their party's platform when they consider this issue of funding for pre-K.
Some of those lawmakers will be elected this year on that platform and theoretically at least could use their party's silence as reason to ignore common-sense investment in better access to early education for Arkansas children.
We can hope not, but it sure doesn't help that Republicans rejected any mention of pre-K in their platform.
Commentary on 08/10/2016