NBC10: Local DA’s: Pay for Pre-K or Pay for Crime Later
A conference advocating for early education and pre-k programs that proponents say could boost graduation rates and reduce the number of people who wind up incarcerated if every three and four-year-old had access.
PRE-K FOR PA’S PUSH FOR EXPANDED EARLY EDUCATION MAKES HEADWAY
From the election trail to the capital, Pre-K for PA has shown how an issue campaign evolves
Pre-K for PA is a non-partisan issue campaign that aims to expand access to pre-Kindergarten to all 3 to 4-year-olds in the state by 2018. Now in its second year, the campaign has reached what could be its first major legislative victory: Governor Tom Wolf has proposed $120 million in additional funds to early education, more than doubling the state’s investment.
“The proposed budget puts $100 million into Pre-K Counts and $20 million into Head Start,” said Kate Philips, statewide coordinator for Pre-K for PA.
Pre-K Counts, which is Pennsylvania’s only state program that funds pre-K, was created in 2008 as a part of a comprehensive education bill. In past years, funding for the program has fallen just under $100 million.
Head Start is a federal program created in the 1960s that funds pre-K and which states have the option to supplement with their own funds. In fiscal year 2014, under then-Governor Tom Corbett, the state paid for an additional 5,643 slots in the Head Start program. That would jump to 8,000 slots with the increase.
Overall the budget would add roughly 14,000 seats to high-quality pre-K classrooms, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This breaks down to roughly $8,000 a seat per year, Philips explained.
The budget proposal is a great first step, Philips said, given that 70 percent of 3 to 4-year-olds in Pennsylvania currently do not have access to pre-K. Not investing in this age group’s education has a severe economic and social ripple effect, according to a growing body of research. It leads to a greater demand on taxpayers later on when individuals who are not properly educated require other social services to get by.
From the campaign trail to the state house
But while the benefits of increased spending on early education are clear to Pre-K for PA and its supporters, keeping the issue in the public eye has required the kind of committed outreach and promotion usually reserved for candidates running in an election.
The campaign’s volunteers and regional coordinators worked through the last gubernatorial election to keep the issue of expanded pre-K in front of both voters and candidates. This involved having a presence at campaign events, distributing materials like pamphlets and lawn signs, and continually communicating their goals to candidates and the press.
“We distributed almost 2,000 lawn signs so that people had a way to show their support for the issue during a season when people expect to see lawn signs,” said Anne Gemmell, field director for Pre-K for PA and an employee of Public Citizens for Children + Youth. “It was a little unusual in the sense that it was for an issue and a cause, as opposed to a candidate.”
However unusual, Gemmell contends that jumping into the election season fray is key to getting people to care about an issue.
“For advocates, no matter what issue they’re championing, an election year is always a good year to do it because people who understand or are mildly interested in policy decisions are paying attention and the candidates are paying attention,” Gemmell said. “It is the time that we as a society have conversations about what the big vision is going forward.”
Elections are also a time when candidates latch onto ideas and make them a part of their platform. A number of candidates, Governor Wolf included, said they supported expanding early education. But Pre-K for PA, a non-partisan organization, did not endorse any of them.
“We are not an endorsing entity. We are just an effort that in some ways mimics endorsing organizations in the ways that we engaged in the public dialogue,” like putting out lawn signs or campaign buttons, she said. “We sort of thought of the issue as our candidate.”
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ReadyNation Report Outlines Business Case for PA to Invest More in Early Childhood Education
HARRISBURG (April 15, 2015) – A ReadyNation report examining the benefits of quality early learning on the economy was released today as business leaders from across Pennsylvania convened for the annual Early Learning Investment Commission’s (ELIC) Economic Summit on Early Childhood Investment.
The report, Business Case in Pennsylvania for Early Childhood Investments, outlines the business case for investing in pre-k. Pennsylvania businesses are in need of job-ready, team-capable and well-prepared employees, and high-quality early learning programs help build the foundation for these attributes.
“As business leaders, we know that we get better employees in the long-term when we prioritize high-quality early childhood education,” said Nick Scott Jr., a Pennsylvania business owner (Scott Enterprises, Erie) who serves on the Pre-K for PA Executive Leadership Council. “An investment in our youngest learners is an investment in our state’s economy, and right now we are falling behind.”
The report finds that smart, proven investments in Pennsylvania’s youngest learners are critically needed to protect the commonwealth’s competitive edge in a global marketplace. Such investments:
Today’s ELIC summit convenes nearly 200 business and civic leaders from across the commonwealth to discuss early learning and child development. The commission is made up of governor-appointed business leaders who understand the value of investing in early learning as a means to build an effective, competitive workforce and a stronger economy.
ReadyNation is the preeminent business leader organization working to strengthen business and the economy through effective investments in children and youth. For more information, visit www.readynation.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. The campaign’s 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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Indiana Gazette: Forum Highlights Early Education Issues
During an Early Learning Forum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, experts discussed how expanding access to high-quality pre-kindergarten programs is essential to school readiness, crime prevention, workforce development and future national security.
Child advocates, law enforcement, and business and military leaders participated in the forum, including state Rep. Dave Reed, R-Indiana; Indiana County Sheriff Robert Fyock; and Rear Adm. Thomas J. Wilson of Mission: Readiness — Military Leaders for Kids.
Mission: Readiness is a national security nonprofit organization that aims to reverse the high percentage of youths ineligible for military service.
The event was planned by partners of the Pre-K for Pennsylvania Campaign: The Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children; Mission: Readiness; and Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a nonpartisan crime prevention organization. It was part of a series sponsored by PNC Bank’s Grow Up Great Initiative.
“Unfortunately, 72 percent of young adults in Pennsylvania cannot meet the military’s standards in math, reading and problem-solving,” Wilson said in a press release. “High-quality pre-K is a proven investment that will help reverse this trend.”
In Indiana County, officials said, 68 percent of the roughly 1,900 3- and 4-year-olds do not have access to a high-quality pre-K program.
Fyock, speaking on behalf of Fight Crime, said quality pre-K helps build a solid foundation for educational success, which in turn impacts crime prevention.
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Erie Reader: Pre-K for PA
Perry Elementary’s pre-K classroom was buzzing with activity – it looks a bit like play, and it looks a lot like fun, but there is a clearly defined mission: student success in the formative educational years to come. It was the middle of “activity center” time, during which students self organize, go where they want, and do mostly as they please, as long as the activities are constructive and purposeful.
From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., students engage in a multitude of activities from writing their names on a chalkboard next to their name tags as a form of practice in both handwriting and spelling, to student-selected independent and small-group activities – like activity centers – designed to reinforce teacher-led instruction and lessons from daily reading exercises. The teacher’s role during these activities is to facilitate the activities and monitor the language the children use to ensure that their vocabulary is expanding and being used in an appropriate way.
On the morning I arrived at Perry Elementary, the mostly four-year-old students were scattered throughout the classroom in what can best be described as organized chaos. But at the heart of the chaos sit the keys to future success. That’s because pre-K education isn’t about rote memorization of letters and numbers, it’s about helping students develop social skills and beginning the process of creating independent learners.
“The social skills that the children develop in activity centers is really amazing,” says Peggie Conn, a prekindergarten and kindergarten coach for the Erie School District. “It’s a routine day and the children know what to expect. After the first month of school, the kids kind of run the room.”
The Erie School District houses and supports several local pre-K programs through Pre-K Counts grants, which provide funds for school districts and agencies to make high-quality pre-K seats available to the communities they serve.
“You can walk into a pre-K classroom anytime, unannounced, and you’ll see serious learning going on,” says Erie School District director of communications Matt Cummings.
That’s essentially the definition of “high-quality” pre-K. Students are engaged in rigorous educational activity that prepares them for social and academic success in kindergarten and the first few years of elementary school that follow.
In the “block center” of the room, two boys constructed a dentist office from cardboard blocks. It was complete with a dentist and a patient and reflected a story they had read earlier that week about going to the dentist. A group of girls role-played in the “dramatic play center,” acting out a different story. In the reading corner, a girl “read” independently on a blue patent leather couch as she listened to the story on headphones, an exercise that helps the kids identify words they hear as well as allowing them to model reading behavior. Across the room, from the reading cove, in the music corner, a girl and boy sang – what else – “Let it Go” from Disney’s Frozen.
Yes, it’s play. Yes, it’s fun, but it is all in the name of preparing students for success when they get to kindergarten. Whether or not a child succeeds in kindergarten can lay the foundation for success or failure throughout that child’s educational career. Appropriate or not, children who fail kindergarten have a stigma that follows them
throughout their elementary and secondary schooling, and the metrics for student success are often better measured in the home rather than in the classroom because it’s level of attention, direction, and developmental assistance that children receive from their parents or guardians in the home directly correlates to how well prepared the child is to enter kindergarten.
Paradoxically, early childhood education is one of the few areas of economic transcendence between high-income and low-income families. High-income families have their choice of schools and programs while state and federal programs provide opportunities for children of low-income families to attend high-quality pre-K programs. In Erie County, 10 percent of children ages three and four are enrolled in high-quality pre-K and another 28 percent are enrolled in publicly funded programs.
“The greatest group that needs the greatest help are the children of working families whose parents are working every day, catching the early bus, but at the end of the month just don’t have the resources to be able to commit to pre-K,” says Erie attorney Ron DiNicola, who is co-chair with Erie businessman Nick Scott, Jr. of the NWPA faction of the Pre-K for PA campaign. “It is very much a middle-class program that helps those who need it the most and work the hardest.”
Pre-K for PA is an issue campaign that has brought together business leaders, civil leaders, and politicians with an array of ideological positions from across the state to push for public funding of universal high-quality pre-kindergarten education.
Read the rest of the article at the Erie Reader.
