Lancaster Online: LTE: The Power of Pre-k Evident
4/26/16
The power of pre-K: I’ve seen it as a teacher in an inner-city elementary school, as an early-childhood education provider, and as a grandmother of two young children. Giving kids the opportunity to learn in the right environment can create a lasting impact on their futures.
Watching the wheels turn and the learning light bulbs click in the 3- and 4-year-olds I taught was like magic. From walking in nature to creating a classroom museum, everything was a learning experience.
I was able to follow many of those students as they moved on to elementary school, and I could see how successful they were in their classes. Students who attended a high-quality pre-K entered our elementary school ready to learn and were often several steps ahead of their peers.
My grandchildren — a kindergartner and a 3-year-old preschooler — learn a great deal at home, but both have grown leaps and bounds socially and emotionally by spending time in a classroom full of their peers.
The power of pre-K is something to which all of Pennsylvania’s children should have access. Let’s ensure that all of our kids start off on the right foot with pre-K education!
Pamela Jo Smith
Elizabethtown
Read the Letter to the Editor here.
Centre Daily Times: Sen. Jake Corman and County Officials Celebrate New Pre-k Classroom
By Jeremy Hartley 4/25/16
An additional $30 million in funding has brought the opportunity for prekindergarten learning to more children in Centre County.
State Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, met with educators and law enforcement officials at St. Paul’s Christian Preschool and Childcare in downtown State College on Monday to discuss the infusion of funds and recognize the school’s new pre-K classroom and students.
The funding came as part of the state’s 2015-16 budget, said a joint news release from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in Pennsylvania and Pre-K for Pa. Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts received $25 million while the Head Start Supplemental Assistance program received $5 million.
This new funding for the remainder of the school year has allowed the county to serve an additional 47 children with pre-K education, the release said.
“A review of Pennsylvania’s state inmate population reveals that more than 50 percent of inmates have not graduated high school,” State College police Chief Tom King said in the release. “This revealing statistic is more reason for the imperative that law enforcement leaders place on educational success, which is best achieved by children getting a strong early education.”
Funding for pre-K is one of the few areas in the state where the funds are increasing, Corman said Monday, adding that while there has been a significant increase over the past two years, the demand continues to grow.
“We need to be able to show as a government that we are having a positive impact in these investments of state dollars,” Corman said.
After the meeting, Corman, King, county Commissioner Michael Pipe and educators visited the new pre-K classroom, which, according to school Director Joan Stroemel, opened at the end of Feburary. Fourteen 3- and 4-year-olds helped Corman cut a long, blue ribbon marking the inauguration of the new class.
Read the full article here.
York Daily Record: One Class Could Make Big Difference in York City
By Angie Mason 4/14/16
Students in Nicole Reed’s pre-kindergarten class sat “criss cross applesauce” while she began reading them a story about a chick that imitates other barnyard animals.
“This little chick from over the way went to play with the pigs one day,” she began. Students chimed in on a line that repeated throughout the book. “And what do you think they heard him say?”
Reed asked questions as she paged through the story. What sound does a chick make? What letter does “ribbit” start with? What do you think the chick is going to say?
While Reed guided students through the book, co-teacher Ciara Sweeney sat on the floor with them, jotting down notes about which ones seemed to be picking up the various skills.
Pre-kindergarten class looks like fun. There’s singing, dancing and playing. But there’s a learning goal behind most every activity, and York City school officials believe it pays off — and they’re hoping to see evidence of that in third grade classrooms in a few years. That’s one of the key measurements the district will use to see if its efforts to improve students’ education, laid out in its recovery plan, are working.
What’s the district doing
The York City School District has been pushing to expand pre-kindergarten, with a goal of one day providing the program for all York City children. The district expanded its offerings to have 12 classrooms this year, serving about half of children who will head to kindergarten, and the district hopes to add another classroom next year. Some of the district’s classrooms are funded by state Pre-K Counts grants, and some are paid for with district funds.
The pre-k expansion relates to one of the academic goals laid out in the district’s new recovery plan: improving third-grade literacy.
Before third grade, students are learning to read. Starting in third grade, they begin using their reading skills to learn.
“If we don’t build these literacy skills early … then those students will be at a disadvantage,” said York City School District Supt. Eric Holmes.
In 2018-19, this year’s pre-kindergarten students will be in third grade. By June 2019, the district aims to close the gap between its third-grade reading scores and the state average. That gap stands at about 42 percentage points now.
Third grade is the first year students take mandated state reading and math tests, and in urban environments around the country, it’s also where schools start to see student achievement begin to fall, Holmes said.
Offering the children pre-kindergarten would give the district one more year to catch them up and get them on track by third grade.
Like everything, expanding pre-kindergarten takes money. A pre-k classroom for 19 students costs about $161,500.
Holmes said the district supports Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to increase early education funding. Pre-kindergarten is usually considered to have bipartisan support, but how much more the state should spend there is debated. Wolf had initially sought an increase of $120 million for Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs for 2015-16, but the partial budget adopted in December included a $30 million increase for those items.
The school district is committed to expanding pre-kindergarten either way, Holmes said, and will use general funds if necessary. But if the state put more toward pre-k, that would allow the district to use its general fund dollars for other student-centered programs, he said.
Getting ready to read
In a third-grade classroom at Hannah Penn K-8 School, Ella Alsentzer asked her students if they remembered what an adverb is.
“It describes a verb,” a student called out.
“Perfect!” Alsentzer answered. Students began going through sentences, looking for adverbs and discussing their meaning as they went.
Soon they turned to their textbooks, where they learned the word “voyage” — is a trip to Target a voyage? How about to California? — and took turns reading paragraphs.
Third grade is when students begin putting together their skills to start to comprehend what they’re reading, Alsentzer said. They’re no longer just learning to sound out words, but rather putting those words together to understand meaning. They need to be able to answer context questions about what the’re reading.
Getting the students there starts early.
In Reed’s pre-kindergarten class at Devers, students took turns sitting at a desk and writing the letters of their first names on a piece of paper, while their classmates danced and sang with Sweeney.
“Stay on those tracers,” Reed guided one child, while classmates pretended to play guitar along with a song.
In pre-kindergarten, Reed works to get students used to seeing words and letters. They focus on a “letter of the week” and a list of vocabulary words. They learn “snap words” like “a” and “the.”
Kindergarten will move fast. While pre-k focuses on a letter of the week, kindergarten does several each week, Reed said.
Julie Fabie, the district’s pre-kindergarten coordinator, said literacy is a big focus. The teachers work on introducing students to vocabulary they might not have heard otherwise, building up students’ “word bank” in preparation for kindergarten.
And while there’s a learning standard being met through every activity, Fabie said, students in pre-k are certainly getting time to play.
“It’s what’s developmentally appropriate,” she said.
Fabie told the school board that this year, the pre-kindergarten classes started a developmental screening questionnaire with students, to help identify any possible developmental delays. Then the classes work closely with the Lincoln Intermediate Unit for any interventions needed.
Pre-k can save on special education costs, said Joan Benso, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children. Often a child might have an IEP — an individualized plan for a student with special needs — in pre-k that might be unnecessary by kindergarten or first grade.
“I think the issue is … sometimes those delays are very focused on language acquisition,” Benso said. “If that child is in a rich, literacy promoting pre-k program, those language acquisition skills … are all taken care of before that kids go to kindergarten.”
Benso’s organization is part of Pre-K for PA, a campaign pushing for all 3- and 4-year-olds to have access to high quality pre-kindergarten by 2018. The campaign cites a host of benefits from pre-k, pulled from various studies.
Early literacy skills are one of the most important outcomes of pre-k, she said, but it also gives students early numeracy and social skills. It can mean fewer disruptions in the classroom later, which is better for everyone to learn.
For children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, pre-k means they are more likely to enter kindergarten similarly prepared to a student from a more affluent background, she said.
Benso said it isn’t a silver bullet — the quality of education after pre-k matters, too. A child who has the opportunity to attend a high school with the latest technology in the science lab and advanced courses is likely to be better prepared for college than a child who doesn’t.
“That does’t mean pre-k failed, that means we failed on a K-12 side,” she said.
Read the full article here.
CBS21: PA mayors call for continued investment in publicly funded pre-k
April 11, 2016
HARRISBURG, Pa. — As Mayors from Pennsylvania’s largest population centers continue to advocate for major pre-k initiatives in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Mayors and other leaders from mid-sized cities and communities across Pennsylvania gathered in Harrisburg today to encourage Governor Wolf and legislators to continue investing in publicly funded pre-k. The Mayor’s said pre-k is a vital element in the development of municipalities, citing lower crime, improved education outcomes, and greater workforce readiness as the key reasons to invest.
Lancaster Mayor J. Richard Gray, President of the Pennsylvania Municipal League joined forces with leaders from Cranberry to Lebanon in a chorus of support for expanded access to pre-k, “I support expanded access to pre-k as a cost-effective strategy to make our communities safer, and grow new jobs and businesses. A growing body of research shows that early childhood education in a pre-kindergarten setting provides a proven pathway towards achieving these goals.”
Governor Wolf’s 2016-17 proposed budget includes another $60 million in new funding for high quality pre-k. That investment would build on this year’s expansion and allow more than 14,000 young children to access pre-k over the two-year time period.
Research shows that expanded access to high quality pre-k can also reduce crime rates and make communities safer. Hundreds of Pennsylvania police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys have lined up behind efforts to invest in pre-k.
“Less crime means less money spent fighting crime,” Pennsylvania Municipal League 1st Vice President and City of York Mayor C. Kim Bracey said. “Imagine what we could do to improve our city or lower our taxes if we didn’t have to devote so much of our local budget to dealing with crime on the back-end.”
Bracey cited the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) preschool study, one of the nation’s most extensive studies that tracked child outcomes over 28 years, that found that children without access to a good pre-k program were 70 percent more likely to be arrested by the time they were 18 compared to children who had the benefits of pre-k.
In Pennsylvania, Department of Correction Secretary John Wetzel has touted research that shows a $120 million state funding increase for early childhood education will eventually lead to $350 million in Corrections and other cost savings for the Commonwealth every year.
Expanded access to high quality pre-k enjoys bi-partisan support in communities throughout the state. Lebanon Mayor Sherry Capello noted that mayors regardless of political affiliation see pre-k as an important part of their communities’ future. “Better education is an important part of any communities’ economic development plan and I believe that better education starts early. I think this is an issue that we all can agree on.” Capello went on to urge state policymakers to work in a bi-partisan fashion to invest in pre-k.
Read the full article here.
PA Mayors Call for Continued Investment in Publicly Funded Pre-K; Pre-K Helps Develop Vibrant Communities
HARRISBURG (April 11, 2016)— As Mayors from Pennsylvania’s largest population centers continue to advocate for major pre-k initiatives in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Mayors and other leaders from mid-sized cities and communities across Pennsylvania gathered in Harrisburg today to encourage Governor Wolf and legislators to continue investing in publicly funded pre-k. The Mayor’s said pre-k is a vital element in the development of municipalities, citing lower crime, improved education outcomes, and greater workforce readiness as the key reasons to invest.
Lancaster Mayor J. Richard Gray, President of the Pennsylvania Municipal League joined forces with leaders from Cranberry to Lebanon in a chorus of support for expanded access to pre-k, “I support expanded access to pre-k as a cost-effective strategy to make our communities safer, and grow new jobs and businesses. A growing body of research shows that early childhood education in a pre-kindergarten setting provides a proven pathway towards achieving these goals.”
Governor Wolf’s 2016-17 proposed budget includes another $60 million in new funding for high quality pre-k. That investment would build on this year’s expansion and allow more than 14,000 young children to access pre-k over the two-year time period.
Research shows that expanded access to high quality pre-k can also reduce crime rates and make communities safer. Hundreds of Pennsylvania police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys have lined up behind efforts to invest in pre-k.
“Less crime means less money spent fighting crime,” said Pennsylvania Municipal League 1st Vice President and City of York Mayor C. Kim Bracey. “Imagine what we could do to improve our city or lower our taxes if we didn’t have to devote so much of our local budget to dealing with crime on the back-end.”
Bracey cited the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) preschool study, one of the nation’s most extensive studies that tracked child outcomes over 28 years, that found that children without access to a good pre-k program were 70 percent more likely to be arrested by the time they were 18 compared to children who had the benefits of pre-k.
In Pennsylvania, Department of Correction Secretary John Wetzel has touted research that shows a $120 million state funding increase for early childhood education will eventually lead to $350 million in Corrections and other cost savings for the Commonwealth every year.
Expanded access to high quality pre-k enjoys bi-partisan support in communities throughout the state. Lebanon Mayor Sherry Capello noted that mayors regardless of political affiliation see pre-k as an important part of their communities’ future. “Better education is an important part of any communities’ economic development plan and I believe that better education starts early. I think this is an issue that we all can agree on.” Capello went on to urge state policymakers to work in a bi-partisan fashion to invest in pre-k.
By stimulating economic growth and reducing public safety costs, over time cities and communities are likely to see that expanded pre-k can take some pressure off the local tax base. In the short term, pre-k reduces special education costs so school districts see immediate returns.
Research from Pennsylvania and across the country indicates that where children start school with two years of high quality pre-k under their belts, the districts are seeing the number of children enrolled in special education services drop by as much as 50 percent by 2nd grade.
“In school districts across Pennsylvania, rising special education costs are a leading reason for regular property tax increases,” Dick Hadley, Supervisor, Cranberry Township. “A smart upfront investment in our children can curb that trend in short order. When combined with the savings on the public safety side of the ledger, pre-k makes sense for our kids and our local budgets.”
The mission of the Pennsylvania Municipal League (PML) is to strengthen, empower and advocate for effective local government. PML is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization established in 1900 as an advocate for Pennsylvania’s 3rd class cities. Today, PML represents Pennsylvania’s cities, townships, town, boroughs, and home rule communities that all share the League’s municipal policy interests. The Board of Directors oversees the administration of a wide array of municipal services including legislative advocacy (on both the state and federal level), publications designed to educate and inform, inquiry and research, education and training certification programs, consulting-based programs, and group insurance trusts. For more information www.pamunicipalleague.org.
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. Our vision is that every 3- and 4-year-old in Pennsylvania will have access to high-quality pre-k. We will not endorse nor oppose candidates, but rather we will advocate on behalf of this vision for Pennsylvania’s children, schools and communities. For more information www.prekforpa.org.
