Vermont state representative Bill Suchmann is pushing a bill that would require children to attend preschool. State agencies have been ordered to study the costs and benefits of requiring three-year-olds to attend half-day care, and four-year-olds to attend full-day care during the school year. Defending the proposal, Suchmann said, "Children who attend an enlightened preschool program ... will have an incalculable head start over those left with a bored baby sitter watching TV. The neglected have-nots of our society, as they enter kindergarten, will never in their life have equal educational opportunity once the doors of their mind have been shut to learning." Suchmann insisted that preschool must be mandatory and state-run because "many children do not have parents available at home or even capable of appropriate intellectual stimulation." He added, "We spend countless millions on police protection, corrections, drug rehabilitation, and welfare, most of it the result of failed or inadequate education."

†