Public News Service: Report Shows PA Lagging in Pre-K
January 17, 2018
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Investing in pre-K is investing in a strong future for Pennsylvania, according to a new report from Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children.
The study says the Keystone State ranks 18th out of 30 states that put state money into quality pre-K programs.
While neighboring New Jersey, the national leader, puts more than $3,200 per capita into publicly funded pre-K, Pennsylvania spends less than $800.
According to Joan Benso, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, years of research have shown that high-quality early childhood education is an investment that pays off.
“Public investments in pre-K get kids ready for school, help them succeed in school, make it likely they will not engage in juvenile crime and, ultimately, be productive members of the workforce,” she points out.
The state did increase funding by $30 million for the current fiscal year, but only 36 percent of eligible children currently have access to quality pre-K programs.
Studies have shown that every dollar of public investment in quality pre-K returns $4 in savings for social costs such as remediation and juvenile crime.
Benso points out that there’s also a long-term multiplier effect.
“The contributions of someone who graduates from high school, goes on to post-secondary education and goes into the workforce skilled ends up being another big return,” she states.
Benso says the state could serve all at-risk children by investing $85 million in the next state budget, and an additional $225 million by the 2020-to-2021 fiscal year.
This is a pivotal year for electoral politics at both the state and national level. Benso maintains early childhood education is an issue that candidates need to address.
“And one of the wisest public investments voters can be seeking in their candidates for office includes high quality pre-K,” she stresses.
Voters in 12 of the 17 states that invest more in pre-K than Pennsylvania will elect governors this year.
Listen to the report here.
The Intelligencer: Former governors Rendell, Schweiker urge more funding for pre-kindergarten
January 17, 2018 by Chris English
The two former Pennsylvania chief executives spoke during a press conference at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit in Doylestown Township.
Former Pennsylvania governors Ed Rendell and Mark Schweiker lent their voices to the call for more state funding for quality pre-kindergarten during a press conference Wednesday afternoon at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit in Doylestown Township.
During the event organized by the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children and Pre-K for PA, both Rendell and Schweiker said they placed high priorities on pre-K spending during their administrations but were often thwarted by their legislatures.
The administration of Gov. Tom Wolf is making good progress, both former governors said. In 2017-18, state funding for pre-K is $226 million — a $30 million increase from last fiscal year and a $90 million hike over the last three years, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children President and CEO Joan Benso said.
But more needs to be done, Rendell and Schweiker said.
“The private sector has stepped up to make contributions to pre-K, but it’s not the private sector’s job,” Rendell said. “The education of our children is one of the core responsibilities of state government. There should not be one child in Pennsylvania not receiving a high quality pre-K education. Our children do better if we lay a foundation of pre-K education and full-day kindergarten.”
A report released Wednesday by Pre-K for PA said that only 36 percent of eligible children in Pennsylvania receive high quality, publicly funded pre-K. That means 112,900 children are not getting it, the report said.
Of the 30 states that publicly fund pre-K at current educational standards, Pennsylvania ranks 18th with per capita spending of $792, the report said. New Jersey is first at $2,706, it added.
According to the report, pre-K investments save taxpayer dollars by reducing the need for special education and remedial instruction in later years, and increases graduation rates and college enrollment, among other benefits.
“Gov. Wolf has made important strides, but the other states are still boxing our ears off,” Rendell said. “If we want to attract the Amazons and other cutting edge businesses to our state, we need to properly educate our kids.”
Both former governors said one of the main reasons Pennsylvania lags behind other states in pre-K funding is simply a reluctance among lawmakers to commit the funds.
“Good or bad, there is a philosophical take on state government that it shouldn’t be responsible for education below kindergarten,” Schweiker said.
Politicians want to look good during campaigns by boasting that they didn’t vote to raise taxes but that is a misguided notion, Rendell said.
“People don’t mind a raise in taxes if they see they are getting something for it,” he said.
Read the full article here.
WBRE: Governor Wolf and First Lady Frances Wolf Light the 2017 Capitol Christmas Tree
December 8, 2017 by Jayne Ann Bugda
HARRISBURG, DAUPHIN COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU-TV) Governor Tom Wolf and First Lady Frances Wolf flipped the switch lighting the Capitol Christmas Tree in the Rotunda.
The tree is a 22-foot Douglas Fir from Crystal Spring Tree Farm in Lehighton, Carbon County. It is decorated with more than 900 LED lights and more than 1,600 hand-made ornaments from senior centers throughout the commonwealth coordinated by the PA Department of Aging and Pre-K/Head Start students through Pre-K for PA.
The Rotunda tree will be lit daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., while the Capitol Steps and Soldiers’ Grove trees will be lit daily from 5 p.m. to midnight. All trees will be lit daily through the week of
January 8, 2018.
Watch the video here.
PennLive: If you think early childhood education is just snacks and nap time, you haven’t been paying attention
October 6, 2017 by John Micek
On a fine, early fall morning in 2005, my wife and I made the most difficult choice we’d yet made as parents.
A mere three months into our daughter’s life, we packed her into her baby carrier, drove the 10 minutes or so to the other side of the Susquehanna River, and handed her over to a daycare provider we’d chosen with more precision than the planning for the Normandy invasion.
I held my wife’s hand as she tearfully handed our daughter over. The knot in my throat was palpable. And every minute we did it, we questioned our motives and chastised ourselves as parents. But as a dual income household, where every spare dollar counted, there was no other choice.
A decade later, it’s a decision I’ve never regretted.
In that program, and then another one later on, my daughter got the tools she needed to be ready for her school career. At four, she was reading above grade-level, learning Spanish, and taking classes in Suzuki-method violin – all thanks to the program we’d found for her.
I fully recognize that we were lucky to have the wherewithal to find those programs for her, and that other Pennsylvania parents aren’t nearly so lucky.
Still, that’s why it always frosts me to hear people dismiss the importance of these programs as little more than glorified story-time, instead of what they actually are: key preparation, not only for school, but also for work and the lifetime of learning that comes afterward.
And in my experience, those arguments are often made by people who haven’t set foot in a kindergarten or pre-k class in decades, their memories trapped in amber, recalling something that’s long since ceased to exist.
And that’s just one of the reasons why strong state support for publicly funded pre-k programs is so vitally important. Every kid – regardless of their situation – deserves a fair shot at success out of the gate.
There’s a mountain of data out there proving what I already know in my gut: Kids with access to high-quality, early childhood education exhibit higher levels of proficiency in math and reading; they’re less likely to be held back in the primary grades and more likely to graduate high school; they need less remediation, and there’s less of a need for those “individual education plans,” often formulated for struggling students.
Those arguments were backed up this week by a new joint report by the Pennsylvania Principals Association and Pre-K for Pa. — a coalition of advocacy groups that that lobbies for increased state funding for these critical programs.
The 2017-18 budget that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf allowed to lapse into law in early July without his signature increases state spending on two key, programs – “Pre-K Counts” and Head Start — by $30 million from the year before.
That’s not too shabby.
But advocates say that’s not enough. They were thwarted in their effort to preserve the $75 million increase Wolf proposed back in February, arguing that it would fund pre-kindergarten seats for 8,400 school children.
These state programs serve families who earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level, according to published reports. That’s about $72,000 for a family of four – which means about two-thirds of pre-schoolers statewide are missing out on those programs, the report indicated.
During a stop in the Pittsburgh are on Wednesday, Joan Benso, the forcefully enthusiastic head of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a leading group in that coalition, pointed out that more than half the families in Allegheny County who are eligible for publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs don’t have access to them, The Tribune-Review reported.
Yes, $75 million is a lot of money – especially when you consider that Wolf and state lawmakers are locked in an increasingly high-stakes (and long past absurd) debate over how to pay for that $32 billion spending plan that landed on the governor’s desk nearly four months ago.
Here’s another reason why this spending is so important: Economic competitiveness.
Right now, Pennsylvania invests $682.17 per child, the study found. Fifteen states invest more than $1,000 per child, including such economic competitors as New Jersey and New York, the study found.
And a study by National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University shows that 19 states and Washington D.C. each make a higher per-capital investment in high-quality preschool programs.
Do you seriously want to be shown-up by … ugh … New Jersey?
Still, if you’re inclined to dismiss Benso and her fellow-travelers as a bunch of liberal do-gooders intent on parting the taxpayers from their hard-earned money, consider one more argument as well:
Both Cumberlahd County District Attorney David J. Freed – who’s hardly a known radical – and Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary John E. Wetzel, are also fierce advocates for these programs.
The reason is pretty simple: Spending money on quality programs on the front-end means it’s far less likely that your kid will ever need to run into either Freed or Wetzel on the back-end.
“Early learning programs are a ‘fork in the road’ opportunity to reduce the number of future criminals by placing more at-risk children on a secure path to school and life success,” Freed, a Republican and likely central Pennsylvania’s next United States Attorney, said in a 2016 interview.
Read the full article here.
Lancaster Online: Report: 80 percent of at-risk Lancaster County children miss out on high-quality pre-k programs
October 6, 2017 by Alex Geli
Four-fifths of eligible Lancaster County children don’t attend high-quality, publicly funded pre-k programs, a new report says.
The report, produced by the Pennsylvania Principals Association in partnership with the Pre-K for PA Campaign, reveals that many of the most at-risk students — those from low-income households — are missing out on pivotal pre-k opportunities. That’s despite near-unanimous public support of pre-k services among elementary school principals.
To minimize that, officials are requesting state funding increases of $62 million annually for five years to expand pre-k access statewide.
“Pre-k works,” said Joan Benso, president and chief executive officer of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a founding member of the Pre-K for PA Campaign. “Decades of research has proven it and this survey adds the validation of Pennsylvania’s elementary principals.”
Surveyed were 1,300 principals, 99 percent of which said high-quality pre-k was an important tool for preparing children for kindergarten, particularly children more at-risk of falling behind.
Elizabeth R. Martin Elementary School Principal Barbara Andrews was one of those surveyed.
“In my school, I see the long-lasting benefits of high-quality pre-k,” she said. “It provides a foundation which enables these children to be confident and successful in their journey through school and in their personal lives as well.”
School District of Lancaster is one of the largest pre-k providers in the county, with programs at Martin School as well as Burrowes, Carter and MacRae, Fulton, King, Lafayette, Price, Washington and Wickersham elementary schools.
Yet, according to Pre-K for PA, more than 1,000 eligible 3- and 4-year-olds still miss out on those programs. Fifty-five percent of eligible children, in other words, are underserved.
The countywide percentage is 80 percent. Statewide, it’s 64 percent.
Most Lancaster County schools don’t offer pre-k programs. Several —such as Pequea Valley, Conestoga Valley, Cocalico and Manheim Township — partner with third parties to offer publicly funded pre-k services.
Despite those third parties often being private community organizations, they receive financial support from the state’s Pre-K Counts or Head Start Supplemental Assistance programs.
Community Action Partnership is one of the county’s leading Head Start organizations. According to its 2015-16 report, CAP served 710 children and 758 families in Lancaster County. In addition to closing the achievement gap in math, language and literacy skills, the program provides health screenings; nutritional meals; educational field trips; emotional, social and behavioral support; and more.
“Children that experience high-quality pre-kindergarten see themselves as capable learners and walk through the kindergarten door not just ready but eager to keep learning,” Stacy Lewis, CAP’s director of Head Start programs, said.
Children that don’t experience high-quality pre-k are said to be at an unfair disadvantage when they enter kindergarten, especially those from low-income households.
That’s why programs such as Pre-K Counts and Head Start exist — to help economically disadvantaged families send their children to kindergarten on proper footing.
But the Commonwealth can do more, the report states.
An additional $310 million in state funding for pre-k by 2022 will ensure that every at-risk child has access to high-quality pre-k programs, the report says. An additional $100 million would allow middle-class families more easily afford high-quality pre-k programs.
Read the full article here.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Not enough seats for Southwest Pa. preschoolers, advocates say
September 27, 2017 by Jamie Martines
Research shows that attending preschool helps students succeed later in their academic careers. The problem is that the number of students eligible for publicly funded preschool programs continues to outpace the number of available seats, advocates say.
They gathered in Irwin and Pittsburgh Tuesday to discuss the need for more state funding to grow such programs.
“I have spent far too much time telling parents who would like to enroll their children in our program that they cannot, simply because we don’t have more public funding,” said Carol Barone-Martin, executive director of early childhood programs in Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Lawmakers increased funding for preschool by $30 million in the 2017-18 state budget. But advocates argue that more is needed, citing the findings of a report released this month by the Pennsylvania Principal’s Association and the statewide coalition Pre-K for PA that shows about two thirds of students eligible for publicly funded programs still do not have access.
Publicly funded programs serve families earning less than 300 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, or about $72,000 per year for a family of four. Both Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties are designated by the state as areas of high unmet need.
In Allegheny County, about 52.5 percent of preschool-age children eligible for publicly funded programs do not have access.
That share is higher in Westmoreland County, where about 65.5 percent of eligible children do not have access to those programs, according to 2015-16 school year data from the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning.
The regions within the New Kensington-Arnold, Kiski Area and Norwin School Districts are among the most in need of additional preschool opportunities, said Cheryl Werner, manager at Westmoreland Community Action, which manages 19 state and federally funded preschool centers.
Read the full article here.
