More states offer preschool
By Nancy Zuckerbrod
Associated Press
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ARLINGTON, Va. — A new report shows shows more and more states are adding pre-kindergarten programs as research highlights the importance of getting children ready to learn.
"Virtually every state has a very strong movement toward doing a better job with pre-k," said Arthur Rolnick, a senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and part of a group of business leaders calling for giving low-income kids earlier access to public school.
A report released yesterday finds states spent at least $3.3 billion last year on pre-kindergarten. That doesn't include money from federal and local governments, which contribute to the state programs. The state funding is up from $2.8 billion in 2005, according to the report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at New Jersey's Rutgers University.
In all, nearly 1 million children, or 20 percent of the country's 4-year-olds, were in state pre-kindergarten last year — up from 17 percent the previous year, the report found.
About one in 10 is in Head Start, the federal pre-kindergarten program for poor children, the report said.
The $6.8 billion Head Start program covers only about half of all eligible children. About 7 percent of the nation's 3-year-olds also participate in Head Start.
As in Virginia, most state-funded programs are aimed at poor children. However, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma offer pre-k to all 4-year-olds. Other states are considering going that route.
(Hawai'i's policy is to offer pre-kindergarten education for all children ages 3 to 5 who have been identified and determined to be eligible to receive services under the provisions of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, according to the state Board of Education's Web site.)
Rolnick and Nobel-Prize-winning economist James Heckman of the University of Chicago have been speaking out on the fiscal benefits of paying for pre-k. They say getting kids off to a solid start is much cheaper than giving them remedial education later.
Pre-k advocates point to research, including:
The research generally shows that low-income students get more out of pre-k than higher-income children.
"To me, the most compelling rationale for it is the inequity data," said Sharon Lynn Kagan, associate dean for policy at Columbia University's Teachers College. "My hope would be that everybody would have it. Short of that, I think you need to think carefully about where you invest and that indeed is what most states have done."
