Since the K-12 system isn't working all that well in many places, the latest idea in education is to ... start the children learning even earlier.

From USA Today comes the idea that maybe we haven't gotten this whole process of human development figured out just yet. The efforts to build smarter babies, including some government programs, "are doomed to failure because they are built on misinterpretations and misapplications of brain research, a report says."

For thousands of years, parents have followed traditions passed down from one set of parents to another. Recently, the idea that all sorts of educational toys and experiences could make a difference in very young children has taken hold. Two years ago, the market for build-a-smarter-baby was $2.5 billion.

As USA Today points out, governments have fallen in line, too. George, for example, persuaded hospitals to send CDs of Mozart home with mothers of newborns.

The group Education Sector has found that there's much wrong with the faddish attention on the zero-to-three year age span. Conveniently, such attention is and can be used to excuse failure of government-run schools. Says Sara Mead, a senior policy analyst with Education Sector, "some have seized on the importance of early brain development in an effort to excuse elementary and secondary schools from the difficult task of working hard on behalf of all students—on the grounds that by the time many students get to school they are already hopelessly and permanently behind."

While the science is far from certain, lots of money is being wasted. Concludes Mead, "hardly anyone's listening. State and federal governments have poured millions of dollars into programs focused on children from birth through age three, many of which have little evidence of effectiveness."

For more on the problems with public early childhood education programs, see the Goldwater Institute, which found that school choice is a powerful way of promoting educational achievement.