NBC 10: PA Budget Passed After 9-Month Deadlock
March 23, 2016
Wednesday afternoon, Governor Wolf finally passed a budget for Pennsylvania, even though he says the math doesn’t add up. NBC10’s Lauren Mayk reports.
Reading Eagle: Promoting the Value of Pre-kindergarten Programs in Chester County
By Holly Herman 3/19/16
NORTH COVENTRY TOWNSHIP – Pointing to colorful fish swimming in a bowl, smiling 5-year-old Gabe Feltman led an entourage of public officials on a tour of his pre-Kindergarten class in North Coventry Township Friday.
“Look at the fish,” Feltman said, to the group visiting the Warwick Cedarville Center to celebrate an increase of $30 million in state funding for pre-K in the partially adopted 2015-16 budget.
“I can tell you kids have a busy day,” state Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr. noted as Gabe showed him the toys and books in the center, which is part of the Owen J. Roberts School District.
Rafferty, a Montgomery County Republican who also serves portions of Berks and Chester counties, then took a seat to read a book to 10 students before they each cut a blue ribbon in the ceremony.
Before the ceremony, Steve Doser, deputy director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a nonpartisan crime prevention organization, ran a roundtable discussion on why more funding for pre-K is necessary.
“We are hopeful that our state policymakers will come together in a bipartisan fashion to find resources to expand access to pre-K in the 2016-17 budget,” Doser said.
“We are all focused on increasing funding for pre-K,” Rafferty responded, noting that the issue is bipartisan.
The 2015-16 partially enacted state budget already includes $127 million for pre-K.
As a result, Chester County received an additional $707,225 to provide spaces for 205 more children.
The allocation includes $170,000 to add 20 spots in pre-K programs in Warwick Child Care programs in North Coventry and East Coventry townships.
Berks County received an additional $743,775 to add 211 children, and Montgomery County received $564,000 for an additional 160 children.
Statewide, more than 120,000 eligible pre-schoolers are not receiving public funding.
Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan urged lawmakers to increase state aid for pre-school to reduce crime.
Hogan said that parental involvement is the key to doing well in life, noting that some children do not have parents to guide them.
Nevertheless, he said, children who go to pre-school are less likely to commit crimes.
“A review of Pennsylvania’s inmate population reveals that more than 50 percent of the inmates have not graduated from high school,” Hogan said.
The state offers two pre-K programs for low-income families.
One program, Pre-K Counts, provides funding to families under 300 percent of the poverty level, which is an annual income of $75,000.
The other program, Head Start Supplemental, provides pre-K to children in families under 120 precent of the federal poverty level, which would be an annual income of $30,000.
The federal poverty level for a family of four, is $24,300.
Read the full article here.
Daily Local: Chester County celebrates early education funding boost
3/18/16
WARWICK >> Chester County Pre-K got a boost in a big way Friday with $700,000 in new state funding and the attention of crime-fighting officials praising the value of early education.
Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan and state Sen. John Rafferty, R-44th Dist., were among the officials at Warwick Childcare Center, 16 East Cedarville Road, to cut a “Pre-K for PA” ribbon and open new classrooms.
In partnership with Owen J. Roberts School District, Warwick and other early learning providers throughout Chester County received more than $700,000 in new state funding so that 200 additional children can be given high-quality Pre-K. The grant was possible because of the inclusion of $30 million in additional pre-kindergarten funding agreed to in the partially enacted state budget.
With the new funding, Warwick Childcare Center was able to open ten more slots in one of its classrooms. In addition, they were able to expand bus routes to lower income housing complexes within the district so that children who are not be able to attend school simply because they can’t get there will no longer be denied early education.
The ongoing issues with passing a state budget created problems for early learning facilities before the recent release of state funds.
“The opening of new Pre-K council classrooms is definitely a step in the right direction but access to high quality early childhood education in Chester County still remains a challenge,” said Diana Neatrour, owner of Warwick Childcare Center.
Rafferty took time out before the ribbon cutting to address that very issue, noting that the need for expanding early childhood education has not been forgotten.
“It’s a tough year. We passed another budget Wednesday before we left Harrisburg that has an allotment for $30 million more for Pre-K. I don’t know what’s going to happen between the governor and the other chamber or what the governor’s going to do with the budget but certainly we’re going to keep trying to put more money into Pre-K,” said Rafferty.
According to Pre-K for PA, existing programs in Chester County only serve about 17 percent of eligible children.
And Chester County isn’t the only county in Pennsylvania to experience these problems. Montgomery County voiced similar concerns about making Pre-K education more available just before the school year started in August as well. Chester and Montgomery county officials have happily rallied behind the expansion of pre-kindergarten education, not only because of the educational benefits but because of early education’s effect on future crime rates.
“We start kids on paths early in life and that path will follow them the whole time,” said Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan in an interview after the ribbon cutting.
“If you start kids on the right path, then they’re going to do well in grade school, then they’re going to do well in high school, then they’re going to go to college and then they get a job. Other kids get on the wrong path. They don’t get that early education or an opportunity and they start falling behind. Already in grade school you can see kids who are falling behind and you know they’re going to have problems in high school. And then when they get to high school, they drop out. And once they drop out of high school, in today’s world, it’s going to be very hard to succeed.”
Read the full article here.
WESA: Investing in Early Childhood Education Means Playing the Long Game
By LIZ REID • MAR 1, 2016
Last May, Governor Tom Wolf held a news conference in front of the Camp Hill state prison in Cumberland County.
He was joined by Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and a handful of district attorneys, all pushing for a $120 million funding increase — not for prisons — but for preschool.
“These are the first steps to what I have as a four-year goal to fully fund early childhood education,” Wolf said.
The press conference was timed not only to coincide with that year’s budget negotiations, but also with the release of a report from the nonprofit advocacy group Fight Crime Invest In Kids.
The report presented data from across the country to make the case that putting more kids in pre-K now would mean fewer adults in prison later.
“Pre-K sets kids up to be at level by grade 3,” Wetzel said. “Those who aren’t reading at level by grade 3 are more likely to drop out. Those who are more likely to drop out are more likely to be incarcerated. So that’s kind of a cascade effect.”
But that budget never passed. The partial budget Wolf signed in December increased pre-K funding by about $30 million.
Cara Ciminillo, executive director of the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children, said the children whose names rest on stalled waiting lists will never get those valuable developmental months and years back.
“Ninety percent of your brain is developed by the time you’re 5 years old,” she said. “So it sort of lays the foundation for the rest of your life.”
For many families, there aren’t enough pre-K slots in their communities, and they can’t afford to look into private education. Because access to high quality early learning experiences is so dependent on income, Ciminillo said it can exacerbate disparities created by economic inequality.
It’s an issue on the minds of educators and parents alike. At a December meeting of Pittsburgh City Council, the (later successful) bill to create the Office of Early Childhood drew nearly an hour of public comment.
Jessica Conway of Squirrel Hill spoke at the meeting. As an early childhood educator and mom to two young boys, she told council menters she’s not sure she can afford to work to anymore.
“At our center, I think if I were not able to return to work, I would be the third teacher in three years who was not able to return to work because of the advent of a second child,” she said. “You would essentially be giving back your entire paycheck in order to be able to go to work 40 hours a week.”
Conway makes about $29,000 a year, and since her husband is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Pittsburgh, she is the breadwinner in the family. After paying tuition for both her sons, even with her employee discount, she would end up with about $50 extra a week.
“I really think that that’s a shame, and I think that across the country we’re probably losing a lot of really good, really dedicated teachers in the early childhood teaching field … because they wanted to have their own children,” she said. “That just does not compute for me.”
For other families, paying for childcare is just one issue.
Aseia Glover laughs as she lists off the fast food and fast casual restaurants she’s worked at: Wendy’s, Arby’s, Burger King, Panera Bread and others.
“I’ve worked everywhere,” she said, usually for minimum wage.
Glover’s daughter Sonja is 18 months old, and she is 9 months pregnant with her second baby girl.
She said working in food service sometimes means early morning shifts and catching the bus at 4 a.m. At her last job, she would take Sonja to a relative’s house the night before.
“(I would) drop her off around 9 or 10 at night, go get her at 5 in the evening, and then only get to spend like four hours with my daughter. And then I’ve got to take her back to the babysitter,” she said. “Most of the time she’ll cry, and I’m like, ‘Aww baby, I’m not abandoning you. I’ve got to make a living.’”
As a low-wage worker, Glover does qualify for the state’s childcare subsidy program, but she said even with the subsidy she would still have to pay $100 a week, about half of her take-home pay.
So instead, she cobbles together care. Sonja’s dad watches her when he’s not at work. Glover’s grandmother and brother pitch in, too. But she worries that Sonja is not getting the kind of education and socialization opportunities that will help her be successful in school and later in life.
“I think about it every day,” Glover said. “That’s why each and every day I fight harder and harder and harder, and it seems like I’m getting somewhere, but it’s just hard.”
Read the full article here.
PennLive: Gov. Tom Wolf asking for $90 million more for preschool programs
February 4, 2016
Gov. Tom Wolf plans to ask the General Assembly to invest another $60 million into state funding for preschool programs in 2016-17 on top of $30 million more that he didn’t get in this year’s unfinished budget.
At an event in Philadelphia on Thursday, Wolf made a pitch to try to gain support for this proposed investment that would raise the current state funding for preschool programs of $166.5 million to $256.3 million next year if fully realized.
An increased investment of that size would allow 14,000 more children access to preschool, based on information released by the Wolf Administration earlier this year.
“We have a choice in Pennsylvania. We must choose a path that funds our schools, eliminates our deficit, and puts Pennsylvania back on track,” Wolf said. “I believe that Pennsylvania should be among the many states that provide universal pre-kindergarten for children and I will work to make this a reality.”
The new preschool funding that the governor seeks for this year and next would be divided between Pre-K Counts and the state supplement to federal funding for Head Start.
It would direct $50 million of next year’s money and $20 million of the additional funding he seeks in this year’s budget for Pre-K Counts and $10 million more in each this year and next for Head Start, according to Wolf’s spokesman Jeff Sheridan.
This pre-budget announcement comes on the heels of one Wolf made on Tuesday, saying he intends to ask the Legislature to increase funding for basic education by $200 million next year on top of the $377 million he still wants for this year.
Studies have suggested avoids costs associated with grade repetition and special education, reduces the likelihood of students dropping out of high school, boosts their employment opportunities and mitigates problem behavior that can land them in the criminal justice system.
According to a study released last month by the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children and Pre-K for Pa campaign, only one in six of the state’s 3- and 4-year-olds – nearly 300,000 – were enrolled in high-quality preschool programs and 70 percent of about 175,000 preschoolers at risk of school failure lacked access to these programs. (See below for a county breakdown of those numbers.)
Wolf last year sought a $120 million increase in funding for Pre-K Counts and Head Start but the $23.4 billion budget that he signed into law in December provided for a $30 million bump instead. Wolf said he wants to see double that amount included in the finalized 2015-16 budget and another $60 million in next year’s budget.
When it comes to preschool, Republican and Democratic lawmakers stand in unison in their support of providing more funding and consider it a wise investment. It also has the support from children’s advocacy groups, district attorneys and military leaders.
Pre-K for Pa, a coalition of groups pushing for increased access to quality preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, applauded news of Wolf’s call for increased preschool funding.
“Our coalition, representing ten organizations and more than 13,000 supporters, urges the governor and Legislature to kick off this next round of budget discussions by coming together behind a pre-k funding agreement that keeps us on track to serve all at-risk kids by 2019,” according to the group’s statement.
Read the entire article here.
York Dispatch: Wolf wants additional $60M for early education
February 4, 2016
Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday proposed an additional $60 million in state funding for early childhood education for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
The announcement comes on the heels of his proposal to up state education funding by $200 million for 2015-16, but before the completion of the current fiscal year’s long-stalled state budget.
The additional funding for next year’s budget, Wolf said in a press release, is contingent upon lawmakers passing the bipartisan budget compromise bill that fell apart at the end of December, as each investment is intended to build on the one prior.
Wolf had originally hoped to put $120 million in state funds toward early childhood education for the 2015-16 budget, an amount he halved over the course of the negotiation process. The partial budget he signed in late December added only $30 million, though he hopes to get to the $60 million figure by the time the final budget deal passes, according to the press release. Should lawmakers agree to a total of $120 million over the next two years, an additional 14,000 slots would become available to Pennsylvania 3- and 4-year-olds through the Pre-K Counts and the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program.
“We have a choice in Pennsylvania. We must choose a path that funds our schools, eliminates our deficit, and puts Pennsylvania back on track,” Wolf said during a press conference in Philadelphia. “I believe that Pennsylvania should be among the many states that provide universal pre-kindergarten for children, and I will work to make this a reality.”
Only 30 percent of Pennsylvania children in families earning up to three times the federal poverty level are enrolled in high-quality pre-K programs, a percentage which is significantly smaller in York County.
Read the full article here.
