MEDIA REPORTS

Bucks County needs 174 more pre-kindergarten classrooms to meet demand, according to an educational group.

A $1 million state grant will allow the Neshaminy School District to more than double enrollment in its free pre-kindergarten program.

Rep. Lynda Schlegel-Culver (R-108) believes the 2018-2019 state budget will include increased funding for Pre-K Counts programs. She doubts it will be to the tune of the $40 million being asked for by a nonprofit organization which held a roundtable discussion Thursday afternoon at the Milton YMCA.

“It’s not who we are — to say we’re going to raise children who are going to be behind the curve from the get-go,” said retired U.S. Rear Navy Admiral Tom Wilson. “That’s not who we are as a country.”

The statewide poll, commissioned by the Pre-K for PA campaign, found that three out of four voters in the Keystone State support increased state funding to expand access to high-quality pre-kindergarten. And Brock McCleary, president of Harper Polling, says when it comes to recognizing the necessity of skills and behaviors learned in pre-k, voters are almost unanimous.

It’s safe to say that pollsters don’t often find a super-majority of voters willing to pay more in taxes. Yet in a new poll to be released Thursday, 64 percent of Pennsylvania likely voters said they would support a tax increase to expand publicly funded preschool education, responding to a hypothetical hike of .01 percentage points in the personal income tax, which would cost an average taxpayer about $50.

Advocates who run Pre-K for PA campaign released a poll they paid to conduct showing three quarters of likely voters support more money for “high-quality, publicly-funded” preschool. That is a 12 percentage point increase (63 percent to 75 percent) since the poll was last conducted in 2013.

Delco legislators were told to spend money now or they’ll spending five times as much later in trying to keep communities safe through educational investment and crime prevention.

Before a backdrop of towering fences intertwined with barbed wire, a group of officials from Erie and Crawford counties joined forces Tuesday to support the time and resources needed to prevent today’s children from ending up behind similar fences.

Spending $40 million on pre-K education could save Pennsylvania nearly $150 million and reduce the number of people incarcerated in the long run, according to a new report.