Delaware County Daily Times: Delco Legislators Meet at Local Pre-k to Talk about Early Education
May 31, 2018 by Kathleen Carey
CLIFTON HEIGHTS >> Delco legislators were told to spend money now or they’ll spending five times as much later in trying to keep communities safe through educational investment and crime prevention.
Delaware County Katayoun Copeland joined “Fight Crime: Invest in Kids” at the Today’s Child Learning Center to talk about how early childhood funding could stem criminal activity through the Pre-K Counts program and others targeted to low-income families.
“We know, and just historically, we can’t arrest our way out of committing crimes,” Copeland said. “The (state) Department of Corrections did a report that almost 40 percent of all incoming state prison inmates have less than a 12th-grade education … and an average reading level of those inmates is about eighth grade.”
The district attorney cited a January 2018 report that identified difficulty reading in elementary school as an indicator of future criminal activity.
Among those in attendance was state Rep. Leanne Krueger-Braneky, D-161 of Swarthmore, who told about a discussion Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel had with the state House Appropriations Committee.
“Given the cost of high quality pre-K and the cost of someone in our state correctional system, we could be putting five kids in high-quality pre-K for every person we are paying for in the correctional system,” she said.
Darby Township Police Chief Regina Price said the state spends $3.2 billion annually, or more than $43,000 per state prison inmate, on incarcerating adults.
Comparatively, the education advocates said, the Pre-K Counts program costs $8,500 per student.
Copeland said early education has impact.
“After they left preschool, you see the difference,” she said, adding that there is a correlation between high quality early education and better performance in school, smaller numbers of school suspensions and expulsions, fewer behavioral problems and a decrease in crime.
However, Copeland added, “Only 39 percent of children eligible for publicly funded pre-K are served, leaving more than 106,000 3- and 4-year-olds without that access.”
According to Bruce R. Clash, state director of “Fight Crime: Invest in Kids,” the percentage is higher here.
“In Delaware County, that percentage of unmet need is higher than the state average – 70 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds who qualify do not have access,” he said.
Read the full article here.
Former Governors, Military, Business & Civic Leaders from Across PA Call on Legislature to Fund Pre-K
Rendell, Schweiker call for $40 million investment to expand pre-k to thousands of at-risk kids across PA
Harrisburg, PA (May 23, 2018)– Former Governors Edward G. Rendell and Mark S. Schweiker led a group of influential business, civic, and law enforcement leaders from across the state today in support of continued investment in pre-k, urging the Pennsylvania legislature and the governor to expand access to thousands of at-risk kids in the final 2018-19 budget.
Generals, admirals and other senior military leaders who are members of Mission: Readiness echoed the call for targeted investments that will help young Americans grow up to be educated, healthy and fit to do the work of our nation either as a soldier or a civilian.
In multiple letters to leadership offices of the Pennsylvania legislature, the signers urged leaders in Harrisburg to position the commonwealth to provide access to Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance for all eligible children and begin to address middle-class pre-k affordability concerns by 2022. Specifically, they called for the legislature to fully fund $40 million in additional funding, proposed by Governor Tom Wolf, as part of the 2018-19 final state budget.
If realized, $40 million in additional funding for high-quality pre-k will serve an additional 4,400 three- and four-year-olds across the commonwealth. Currently, there are more than 106,200 or 61% of eligible children throughout Pennsylvania who qualify for high-quality, publicly funded pre-k but remain unserved.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Below is the full text of both letters. For a list of signatories, please visit www.XXXXXXX:
As members of the Pre-K for PA Leadership Council, we thank you for your commitment to growing access to high-quality pre-k. Over the last three years, more than 10,000 eligible children have gained access to high-quality programs like Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts and Head Start State Supplemental Assistance. Despite these historic gains, 61 percent of eligible three- and four-year-olds (more than 106,000 children) lack access to publicly funded, high-quality pre-k in the commonwealth.
As such, Pennsylvania is losing ground as compared to other states providing high-quality pre-k. Currently, the commonwealth ranks 18thin per capita pre-k investments when compared to 30 other states who have comparable programs.
Looking ahead to the 2018-19 state budget, we again urge you to position Pennsylvania to provide access to Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts and Head Start State Supplemental Assistance for all eligible children and begin to address middle-class pre-k affordability concerns by 2022.
Specifically, we ask you to expand state-funded pre-k opportunities to an additional 4,400 eligible children by supporting the proposed $40 million increase in the final 2018-19 state budget. Additionally, we ask you to also prioritize funding for other early learning initiatives like expanding the reach of high-quality child care and evidence-based home visiting programs.
Research is clear that continued investments in high-quality pre-k will set us on a path to reduce educational, public welfare and incarceration costs and have the most important added benefit of ensuring that all children are ready to succeed.
Thank you very much for taking the time to consider this correspondence.
Respectfully submitted,
Mark Schweiker, 44thGovernor, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Ed Rendell, 45thGovernor, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Dear Legislator,
The generals, admirals and other senior military leaders who are members of Mission: Readiness support targeted investments that will help young Americans grow up to be educated, healthy, and fit to do the work of our nation either as a soldier or a civilian.
Unfortunately, the pool of qualified men and women capable of military service today is diminishing. In Pennsylvania, 71 percent of Pennsylvania youth ages 17 to 24 are ineligible for military service due to problems with obesity, education, drug abuse, or crime, according to the Department of Defense.
Pennsylvania employers are also concerned about workforce readiness. According to a recent Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry survey, more than half – 52 percent — say they have great difficulty recruiting qualified job candidates. Moreover, 56 percent believe it will get harder by 2021. Only 21 percent – one in five – rate the readiness of our current labor force for their jobs as excellent or good.
The skills employers need are all built on a foundation of solid academics, but too few Pennsylvania children are achieving in school.
- 61 percent of Pennsylvania eighth graders are NOT proficient in reading, 64 percent are NOT proficient in math, and 67 percent are NOT proficient in science, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress. For the many children in economically disadvantaged families, average math scores are 32 points lower than their better-off peers.
- Only 45 percent of Pennsylvania public school students meet all predictors of college success.
- More than 15 percent of Pennsylvania’s high school freshmen fail to graduate within four years. Among economically disadvantaged students, it’s nearly one quarter.
Fortunately, a solution exists in greater access to early childhood education. Decades of research have shown that high-quality pre-k and other early childhood education programs can help better prepare our children by boosting educational achievement and high school graduation rates, deterring youth from crime, and reducing obesity rates, all while providing a significant return on investment.
We thank you for the progress Pennsylvania has made progress in recent years by expanding funding for high-quality early learning programs like Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance, however access to these high-quality early learning programs remains very limited. Approximately 106,000 eligible Pennsylvania three- and four-year-olds do not have access to these publicly funded pre-k programs due to insufficient funding.
In the interest of fostering the human capital that ensures future military and economic readiness, we respectfully ask that Pennsylvania’s policy makers continue to boost access to high-quality pre-k. Specifically, we ask you to grow state funding for the PA Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance line items by a combined $40 million.
High-quality pre-kindergarten plays a critical role in ensuring that our next generation is academically fit and citizen ready.
Meadville Tribune: Crawford, Erie Officials Make Push for Pre-k Funding
May 9, 2018 by Lorri Drumm
Before a backdrop of towering fences intertwined with barbed wire, a group of officials from Erie and Crawford counties joined forces Tuesday to support the time and resources needed to prevent today’s children from ending up behind similar fences.
Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and law enforcement leaders met outside the State Correctional Institution at Albion to support a report from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids that says spending $40 million on pre-K education could save the state nearly $150 million and reduce the number of people in jail.
“We have a prison behind us,” Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri told those gathered Tuesday. “People must be wondering why all these law enforcement officials are here asking that something different be done.”
Daneri said everyone who works in law enforcement enjoys keeping people safe but does not enjoy putting them behind bars. Daneri, and others gathered on Tuesday, believe investing in children at a young age can not only prevent the chances of imprisonment down the road but also provide them a better chance in life.
Statistics in the 2015 Pennsylvania Youth Survey show that there’s a fork in the road from third grade on, according to Daneri.
“We have to get to them early so there’s a better chance they won’t end up here,” he said as he pointed toward the fences.
The report shows how an increased $40 million state investment for expanding high-quality pre-kindergarten programs — as included in Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2017-18 budget — would boost high school graduation rates, reduce the number of people who are incarcerated in the state and lead to about $150 million in corrections and other cost savings.
Crawford County Sheriff Nick Hoke pointed out statistics in the report that indicate problems for youth years before they get to graduation.
“No child is born predestined for a life of crime,” Hoke said. In the report, a survey showed that 53 percent of students who were suspended in elementary school ended up being placed in a residential juvenile system when they got older, he said.
Bruce Clash, director of Pre-K for PA, told those gathered a few of the statistics compiled in the report that have speared an initiative to direct more funding to early childhood education.
“Only 39 percent of three-to-four- year olds in the state have access to high-quality Pre-K education,” Clash said. “Too many families can’t afford it.”
The report also shows that 40 percent of inmates in state prisons did not graduate from high school, according to Clash.
Building on the shared belief that all children should have the opportunity to enter school ready to succeed, a broad coalition of organizations launched the Pre-K for PA campaign in 2014. The campaign set out to make pre-K a priority issue in the gubernatorial and legislative elections, advocating increased access to high-quality pre-kindergarten for all Pennsylvania’s 3- and 4-year olds.
State Sen. Dan Laughlin, who serves part of Erie County, agrees that investing in Pre-K will reap benefits in the future, but he also wants to address the needs of those in prison now.
“Prison needs to be an education system,” Laughlin said. “Those in prison now should not leave without at least a GED and possibly a career path.”
“We spend $100 million to advertise liquor in this state,” Laughlin said. “We need to spend that on education.”
Read the full article here.
Erie Times: Erie County officials advocate for pre-K funding
May 9, 2018 by Madeleine O’Neill
ALBION — Spending $40 million on pre-K education could save Pennsylvania nearly $150 million and reduce the number of people incarcerated in the long run, according to a new report.
A group of local legislators and law enforcement officials gathered at the State Correctional Institution at Albion with state Corrections Secretary John Wetzel on Tuesday to release the report and to voice their support for additional state funding for early childhood education.
“We know from years of experience that we can’t simply arrest, prosecute and incarcerate our way out of the crime problems,” Erie Police Chief Dan Spizarny said. “We also need to implement strategies that keep people from turning to crime in the first place. Education needs to be the focal point of that strategy.”
The report, which was prepared by the national anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, found that Pennsylvania could see economic benefits of $34,000 per child who receives pre-k services.
Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed $40 million in additional funding for early childhood education in the 2018-19 state budget. The report concluded that the funding would serve 4,400 children and reap long-term savings of $150 million. The savings would include reductions in corrections costs and increases in the children’s future wages, according to the report.
“We’re not going to get an immediate return on investment a year from now,” Wetzel said. “We’re going to get a return on investment a generation from now. Our responsibility to them and to our communities is to have the guts to make a real investment.”
The speakers included Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri, Erie County Sheriff John Loomis, state Sen. Dan Laughlin, and state Rep. Pat Harkins, D-1st Dist., among others.
“Finding the funding is always the struggle for anything that you want to do, but there seems to always be a way to fund the things that people deem important,” said Laughlin, of Millcreek Township, R-49th Dist. “I’m a strong supporter of educating our kids, so the funding for this is very important to me.”
Read the full article here.
Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Candidates Assert Positions on High-Quality Pre-k Access
Harrisburg, PA (April 16, 2018) – As part of a gubernatorial candidate survey conducted by Pre-K for PA partner organization United Way of Pennsylvania, PA candidates asserted their positions on access to high-quality pre-k and child care.
The candidate survey offers Pennsylvanians the opportunity to learn where gubernatorial candidates stand on a variety of issues related to education, health, financial stability and the nonprofit sector. United Way of Pennsylvania is a statewide nonpartisan organization representing 43 member local United Ways and three United Funds in Pennsylvania.
Pre-K for PA is a non-partisan issue-oriented community of 16,000 supporters, 600 organizations, 130 Leadership Council members and 20,500 social media followers who all believe that greater access to high-quality, publicly funded pre-k must be a priority for the commonwealth.
“United Way hopes Pennsylvanians will use this information to learn more about the candidates as they prepare to head to the polls for the May primary,” stated Kristen Rotz, President of United Way of Pennsylvania, Pre-K for PA Principal Partner. “There are many factors that voters should consider as they evaluate the candidates. Among these are the issues United Way considers to be foundational to the vibrancy of our local communities and opportunity for all: education, health, financial stability, and the viability of the nonprofit sector.
“It is important to remember that only a registered voter’s voice will be heard on Election Day. Today is the last day to register to vote in the May primary. We encourage all voters to register, review each candidate’s positions on vital issues facing the health and well-being of the commonwealth, including pre-k access, and to make an informed vote on May 15.”
The full survey results are available on the UWP public website at www.uwp.org under the “Advocacy” menu by clicking on the link for “2018 Gubernatorial Candidates on the Issues”. The full set of responses has been posted for each candidate. The responses are available in two formats: sorted by issue area, or sorted by candidate.
The United Way of Pennsylvania is a 501(c)(3) organization, which does not engage in partisan political activity. The UWP will not endorse a candidate for governor. The purpose of this survey is to educate voters impartially on a nonpartisan basis. All candidates were given equal opportunity to respond to the survey, and three out of four gubernatorial candidates participated. The candidates who responded to this survey are Laura Ellsworth, Scott Wagner and Tom Wolf.
View the survey results here.
Pre-K for PA is an issue campaign supported by individuals and organizations across Pennsylvania who believe that investing in our children is the right choice and an urgent necessity. Its vision is that every 3- and 4-year-old in Pennsylvania will have access to high-quality pre-k. For more information visit www.prekforpa.org.
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