Pottstown Mercury: Guest Column: Pre-K Counts Continues to Make a Difference
February 16, 2021 by Jeff Sparagana
After 23 years of serving the School District of Pottstown and the Pottstown community at-large, I could not be more proud of our work in creating and sustaining a community based school readiness initiative.
In 2006, the Pottstown School District invited community child care providers, community agencies, private businesses and area funders to begin discussions related to improving the school readiness of children entering kindergarten. As result of this unique collaboration of the school district and community partner’s, Pottstown Early Action for Kindergarten Readiness (PEAK) was created for the purpose of supporting young children to increase school readiness and partner with families to facilitate a positive transition to kindergarten.
In 2007, we received one of the initial PA Pre-K Count’s grants which enabled the PEAK partnership to implement high quality, full day Pre-K Counts classrooms in our community partner sites. Today, 15 years later the PEAK Partnership is thriving and serving 300 children with 8 full day Pre-K Counts classrooms in Pottstown School District and 7 full day Pre-K Counts classrooms in our community partner sites. In Pottstown, Pre-K Counts classrooms continue to make a significant difference in our children’s lives.
A recent report by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows the positive impacts on children who attended one of Pennsylvania’s Pre-K Counts high-quality programs. In this report, the bottom line is that children who are fortunate enough to access pre-k through Pennsylvania’s Pre-K Counts program are succeeding in kindergarten classes.
In language and math skills, the study showed that these kids outperformed the other students who did not have access to this once-in-a-lifetime early learning experience — an advantage that equated to four to five months of learning gains, which is a substantial difference in development at that age. These outcomes are significant, because language and math skills have been shown to be the school readiness skills that most strongly predict later academic achievement.
The investment that Pennsylvania has already made into publicly funded pre-k is making an impact on the children who participate in high-quality pre-k programs. I personally got to see this happen in our PEAK classrooms over the years as superintendent. This investment in young children is one of the most important the commonwealth can make.
Jeff Sparagana, Ed.D, is a board member of Public Citizens for Children & Youth, a Pennsylvania-based advocacy group that works to improve the lives of children by developing initiatives and advocating for quality health care, child care, public education and family stability.
Read the full Guest Column here.
Governor’s Budget Proposal Advances Portions of PA’s Early Learning System
Proposal includes increase in pre-k, utilizes federal funds to boost child care rates and level funds home visiting programs
HARRISBURG, PA (February 4, 2021) – The principal partners of Early Learning Pennsylvania (ELPA), a statewide coalition of advocates focused on supporting young Pennsylvanians from birth to age five, commend Governor Wolf’s 2021-22 budget proposal’s emphasis on Pennsylvania families. As a coalition that focuses on greater access to the Commonwealth’s continuum of high-quality early care and education services, we applaud the governor’s continued commitment to growing state funding for pre-k, however additional effort is needed to boost the availability of quality child care and home visiting services that are essential to Pennsylvania’s working families and our economic recovery.
ELPA operates three issue-based advocacy campaigns: Pre-K for PA, Start Strong PA and Childhood Begins at Home. Reaction statements from these respective campaigns regarding the governor’s proposed 2021-22 budget follow.
PRE-K
“During a difficult budget year, Governor Wolf deserves credit for his continued support of expanded access to publicly funded, high-quality pre-k in PA. The $30 million funding increase for these programs in the proposed 2021-22 PA budget ($25 million for Pre-K Counts; $5 million for Head Start State Supplemental Assistance Program) continues the tradition of expanding this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to thousands more 3- and 4-year-olds.
“A new study by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill confirmed that the Commonwealth’s investment in pre-k is paying dividends for the children fortunate enough to access pre-k through Pennsylvania’s Pre-K Counts program. In language and math skills, the study showed that these kids outperformed their kindergarten peers who did not enjoy access – an advantage that equated to four to five months of learning gains, which is a substantial difference in development at that age and a meaningful advantage during the COVID-19 era.
“In Pennsylvania, almost two-thirds of children enrolled in Pre-K Counts attend these classes at a high-quality Keystone STARS 3 or 4 child care provider. As such, the overall stability of our child care system is of paramount concern to serving more pre-k eligible children.”
CHILD CARE
“Start Strong PA commends the Wolf Administration for utilizing existing federal child care funds to increase subsidy base rates. For a sector struggling to survive in the wake of COVID-19 and the economic shutdown, increasing base rates to move towards paying programs the actual cost of the care they provide is important.
“Pennsylvania’s working families struggled to find and afford high-quality child care prior to the pandemic. Today’s economic downturn has only exacerbated this problem. Start Strong PA urges Governor Wolf and the Pennsylvania General Assembly to address these child care needs by quickly utilizing federal funds to serve 3,000 additional eligible infants and toddlers in high-quality slots through contracts, which provides greater financial stability to providers. This proposal would implement the Governor’s Workforce Command Center recommendation to increase access to high-quality child care. Serving more eligible infants and toddlers, coupled with a smart investment strategy of new, incoming federal child care stimulus funds to first address under-enrollment in programs due to the pandemic, would not only be a win for children and families but will address a critical workforce support essential in our economic recovery.”
EVIDENCE-BASED HOME VISITING
“The Childhood Begins at Home campaign is disappointed that the governor’s 2021-22 state budget proposal does not include an increase for voluntary, evidence-based home visiting programs in Pennsylvania for the second year in a row. Given the current environment, the decision to not increase investments so more families are able to participate is perplexing, because families need home visiting now more than ever.
“Beginning in the 2017-18 budget through 2019-20, the campaign saw momentum and support building in the form of steady funding increases to connect more pregnant women, children and families to voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services, and Pennsylvania was becoming a national leader for delivering services that improve maternal health, child well-being and family self-sufficiency.
“Even before the pandemic, Pennsylvania parents struggling to make ends meet and juggling the challenges of raising their young children benefited from voluntary visits that provide parent education and support. Under the crush of the current public health crisis, isolation, stress and unemployment have made home visiting more essential than ever. Not including funds to reach more families with young children makes little sense when these programs uniquely meet families’ needs in the early care and education continuum.
“Only 5% of the pregnant women, children and families who would benefit the most from evidence-based home visiting programs are served currently. The campaign sought a combined increase of $12.4 million in the Community-Based Family Centers and Nurse-Family Partnership line items in the 2021-22 budget.
“The governor’s remarks spoke to the challenges faced by young families just starting out in the Commonwealth – their challenges and dreams for their children – and how we can remove barriers to provide for a brighter future. We hope to work collaboratively with the administration and legislature to expand evidence-based home visiting services to match that commitment with the resources to make it a reality.”
Governor Wolf’s state budget proposal included:
- $25 million in additional funding for the state’s Pre-K Counts program.
- $5 million in additional funding for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program. Together, this $30 million expansion would serve approximately 3,270 additional young children. Currently more than 106,000 eligible three- and four-year-olds do not have access to high-quality publicly funded pre-k programs.
- $87 million in existing federal child care funds to increase child care base rates.
- Level funding for home visiting.
Pre-K for PA launched in 2014 with the vision that every 3- and 4-year-old in Pennsylvania will have access to high-quality pre-k. Learn more at www.prekforpa.org.
Start Strong PA launched in 2019 to support healthy child development, working families, and the economy by increasing access to and affordability of high-quality child care programs for young children. Learn more at www.startstrongpa.org.
Childhood Begins At Home is a statewide campaign to help policymakers and the public understand the value of evidence-based home visiting and support public investments in the programs. Learn more at www.childhoodbeginsathome.org.
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Pa.’s free pre-K program provides a meaningful math and language boost, says new study
By: Miles Bryan | December 18, 2020
A new evaluation of Pennsylvania’s state-funded pre-K program finds it consistently gives kids a meaningful boost in some core skills — but has seemingly no effect on others.
Launched in 2007, the state-backed Pre-K Counts initiative provides free pre-Kindergarten instruction to Pennsylvania’s low-income families.
To evaluate the program, researchers with the University of North Carolina tracked the progress of nearly 600 kindergarteners from across the state during the 2018-19 school year. About two-thirds of those kids had spent at least a year in a Pre-K Counts program, while the rest had received no formal early childhood education.
A key finding is that the kids who had been in pre-K had a serious head start on vocabulary and math skills.
Read the full article here.
northcentralpa.com: LTE: Is there a crisis in childcare?
Ron Frick, President/CEO, Lycoming County United Way
Dec 2, 2020
Healthcare access, educational inequities, and racial disparities are issues that are not new to the United States, but COVID-19 has certainly brought new attention to these issues and others and forced the nonprofit community to speak out and advocate for systemic change. The holes in the dike are opening daily and governments and communities are running out of fingers to plug them.
We clearly need to do better.
Early learning and child-care providers serve families across all socio-economic classes and provide the valuable care needed so parents can go to work and so children have the proper start they need in life. Yet despite the important role many believe they have, many child-care providers are struggling to stay afloat. Under Pennsylvania’s social distancing measures, most child-care providers were required to close in the early days and weeks of the pandemic, and while things have opened up somewhat, many providers have been forced to implement new protocols and work schedules for the parents have also changed and caused disruption for families as well as providers. This has put many high quality programs at risk of closing permanently.
Read the full article here.
Pennsylvania’s Early Learning Programs Level-Funded for Remainder of FY 20-21
Advocacy campaigns continue to push on reimbursement policy and federal stabilization fund
HARRISBURG, PA (November 20, 2020) – The principal partners of Early Learning Pennsylvania (ELPA), a statewide coalition of advocates focused on supporting young Pennsylvanians from birth to age five, thank the General Assembly for level funding state investments in high-quality pre-k, child care and evidence-based home visiting services to help Pennsylvania’s working families. ELPA operates three issue-based advocacy campaigns: Pre-K for PA, Start Strong PA, and Childhood Begins at Home. Reaction statements from these respective campaigns regarding final FY 2020-21 budget follow.
CHILD CARE
“Start Strong PA is grateful to the General Assembly and the Wolf Administration for continuing to level fund child care through the remainder of the FY 20-21. Knowing that our economy depends on working families and working families depend on high-quality child care, access to these services is a necessity in our economic recovery”
“Start Strong PA is resolved to continue to advocate for additional federal funding to stabilize the child care sector and for subsidy policy that bases child care subsidy payment, during this crisis, on pre-pandemic enrollment. The policy recently released by OCDEL clarifies payment in the case of a class or program closure where there is a COVID case or child cannot attend because they test positive. They have yet however, to make any revision to the policy enacted on September 1st that penalizes providers that suffer the reduction in demand for services associated with COVID compliance or fear of contagion.”
“In a study on COVID-19’s impact on Pennsylvania’s child care sector, Penn State’s Director of Institute of State and Regional Affairs reports an estimated $325 million in new costs and lost revenues for PA providers since the economic shutdown. The PennState study reports that these increased costs and reduced enrollment have put 1,000 more providers at risk of closing”
“Such a contraction of Pennsylvania’s child care sector would jeopardize the healthy development of Pennsylvania’s youngest children and disrupt working families as they navigate the new realities of work and school for the duration of the pandemic and beyond.”
PRE-K
“Level funding for high-quality, publicly funded pre-k shows the legislature’s commitment to preserving the state’s investment in early learning. For nearly a decade, Pennsylvania has expanded access to pre-k every year. During an extraordinary and uncertain budget year, this agreement shows a bipartisan commitment to our youngest learners and working families of Pennsylvania.”
“However, Pennsylvania’s early learning providers have incurred devastating losses over the past 8+ months, while more than 100,000 eligible 3- and 4-year-olds await access to a publicly funded pre-k classroom. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge, these financial losses paired with new expenses and smaller enrollments threaten to collapse the early learning system, at a time when capacity is key to meeting the educational needs of Pennsylvania’s youngest learners. Families of 3- and 4-year-olds seeking high quality pre-k require both education and child care.”
EVIDENCE-BASED HOME VISITING
“Whether it is making sure a newborn is growing appropriately and meeting developmental milestones, that an expectant first-time mother is healthy, or a young child gains early literacy skills, the critical services provided through evidence-based home visiting are more important now than ever, as more and more families face mounting challenges during the pandemic.”
“The Childhood Begins at Home campaign is pleased to see that funding for delivering evidence-based home visiting services was level-funded for the 2020-21 budget. With the closure of the current fiscal year, the six evidence-based home visiting models receiving state funding in Pennsylvania can breathe a collective sigh of relief as payments for services in the current quarter have been delayed since October. Providers and families now have certainty that the much-needed services provided through virtual visits can continue.”
“In addition, the Community Based Family Center line that funds evidence-based home visiting in the state budget did receive a $1 million increase in the final state budget bill. However, this allocation was not to expand services to additional children and families, but instead to preserve federal slots through the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program (MIECHV) services as a means to offset the loss of federal funding earlier in the year.”
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“From birth to age 5 early learning is happening, and our coalition of advocates is committed to ensuring that families can access it in high-quality, developmentally appropriate settings. The lack of state resources for early learning creates deep inequity among families at a very early age. Especially during this time of economic uncertainty, we remind lawmakers that these services support working families and that support is an urgent necessity.”
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Longietti honored for Early Childhood Education Caucus leadership
October 19, 2020
State Rep. Mark Longietti is being honored this evening as a “Legislative Champion” by state education advocates for his work as chairman of Pennsylvania’s bipartisan, bicameral Early Childhood Education Caucus.
Longietti, D-Mercer, said his leadership role with the caucus is focused on ensuring that the interests of Pennsylvania’s at-risk children remain a top legislative priority.
“Early education programs benefit young children a hundred different ways beyond the ABCs,” Longietti said. “They make a huge difference in helping kids develop the skills that determine success later in life, from forming friendships and working with peers to developing creative thinking and sharpening problem-solving skills.
“That’s why it’s so critical to ensure all kids have access to these resources. We need to give them an even playing field from the start, because when they don’t have this during their early formative years, it’s very difficult to make that up later.
Read the full article here.
