Pre-K

A recent segment on PBS NewsHour creatively knit together two oft-forgotten elements for ensuring that more children learn to read: the power of the pediatrician and the disparities in access children face not just in preschool but also in full-day kindergarten.  

Board of Minnesota higher ed institutions requests additional funding from state legislators

State university presidents in Indiana request increase after years of flat funding

Idaho teachers will receive bonus pay based on performance

Republicans criticize outgoing North Carolina governor for pre-K expansion

Board of Minnesota higher ed institutions requests additional funding from state legislators
The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees this week offered to cap tuition increases at three percent, decrease administrative expenses by $44 million, and increase enrollment in return for an extra $97 million from legislators over the course of two years. The additional money will raise the system’s total budget to $1.2 billion, an 8.9 increase over the last budget, for the state’s 24 two-year colleges and seven state universities. The three-percent tuition cap would limit increases to $145 for a college student and $205 for a university student. In addition to promising tuition caps, the board has also proposed an aggressive matching campaign; for instance, the Board would match $21 million in state funding for “state-of-the art equipment” with donations from the private sector. State College Student Association President Steve Sabin expressed his concern that tuition hikes will be exceed the stated levels if the state does not fully fund the Board’s request. More here…

State university presidents in Indiana request increase after years of flat funding
The presidents of three state universities in Indiana have asked the State Budget Committee to increase funding for higher education in the next budget biennium, which covers fiscal years 2013-2015, following years of spending cuts that helped keep the state’s budget in the black. Higher education funding this year totaled $1.7 billion in Indiana, a four percent decrease from its high of nearly $1.8 billion in fiscal year 2009. The funding problems are especially burdensome for the state universities that focus more on teaching than research because they have fewer opportunities to receive outside funding for research grants. The presidents argue that they have cut costs significantly and kept tuition and fees at manageable levels for the past several years. Now, they contend, the state should increase funding. More here…

Idaho teachers will receive bonus pay based on performance
Idaho teachers can expect the Pay-for-Performance bonuses implemented last year as part of the state’s “Students Come First” laws, despite the fact that those laws were repealed through a referendum in last week’s elections. Seventy-six percent of Idaho’s schools (499 schools) will receive a portion of the $38 million payout. Although voters were originally told that if the laws were struck down on November 6, the teachers would not legally be allowed to receive bonuses, but the Idaho deputy attorney general issued a legal opinion after the election stating there was no legal impediment to issuing the bonuses this year. Even though the laws were struck down, many legislators and government officials seem to suspect that merit pay for teachers, in some form, will eventually become part of the Idaho K-12 education system. More here…

Republicans criticize outgoing North Carolina governor for pre-K expansion
GOP legislators are criticizing outgoing Democratic Governor Beverly Perdue for reallocating $20 million for an expansion of the state’s pre-kindergarten program for low-income children through next summer. Perdue redirected the $20 million from other funding sources, arguing that programs AIDS medicine and foster care services were overfunded. GOP lawmakers expressed concern because in recent years the state has experienced budget shortfalls late in the fiscal year (usually associated with Medicaid). Further complicating the issue, Perdue will not be governor by the time any potential shortfall would occur – Republican Governor-elect Pat McCrory will take office in early 2013. Before the expansion to the program that will add 6,300 slots, the state was spending about $128 million annually to provide pre-K for approximately 25,000 children. Estimates suggest that closer to 67,000 children may be eligible for the program. The expansion is the result of a 20 percent cut to the program by GOP lawmakers, which included requiring parents to incur a co-pay for pre-K services. Both a county judge and the state Court of Appeals struck down those provisions. More here…

In September the Early Education Initiative added pre-K data from the state and school-district levels to the Federal Education Budget Project database -- already the only comprehensive, centralized database for funding, demographic and outcome information for every state, school district and higher-education institution in the country.

There was a lot of education-related activity in the states this election season, from a ballot initiative in San Antonio that will raise the sales tax to help pay for pre-K, to the race for Indiana superintendent, where controversial incumbent Tony Bennett lost to challenger Glenda Ritz, who reportedly got more votes in the race than Governor Pence did.

We put together this interactive map to help readers peruse some state-by-state results of key races that will affect early education in the states in coming years. Scroll over states to find out more about who ran, who won and where there could be big policy changes afoot.

State-by-State Results of Key Early Ed-Related Races and Ballot Initiatives

A special thanks to Megan Carolan of NIEER, who contributed research to this map.

Update: The Washington gubernatorial election was called for Inslee (D). Voters in Washington state also approved Initiative 1240 to allow charter schools.

What might President Barack Obama’s second term mean for education? In short: four more years. Education Secretary Arne Duncan—a member of Obama’s Chicago circle, with whom the president played basketball on Election Day—has indicated he would like to stay in his job, and Obama’s campaign trumpeting of education policies such as Race to the Top show the administration’s aggressive approach to competitive grant programs, meant to cajole states and districts into embracing favored reform strategies, will likely continue.

Early learning advocates will be pleased programs such as Head Start are less likely to be severely cut with a Democratic Senate and White House to help safeguard them. And the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education now have the chance to continue to forge needed links between their agencies. But those who thought Obama’s early education policies were “too little too late” might remain disappointed. The president made almost no effort to outline a plan for early learning during this campaign, especially compared to the promises of 2008, and has not specifically indicated what he proposes to do for the youngest learners. That said, there are murmurs from Obama insiders that a broad-spectrum approach to early childhood education, including the often-forgotten early grades (K-3) of elementary school, could emerge as a theme in the second term. A Tuesday night press release from the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association, hinted at a desire to hold the president accountable for making headway on early childhood investments. “Throughout the campaign,” the statement said, “the president pledged to invest in education—especially in early childhood education—and to make higher education more affordable.” 

A new report from two child advocacy groups, First Focus and Save the Children, gave the United States a grade of C- on children’s issues for last year. The report, America’s Report Card 2012, considered White House, federal agency, state and community efforts on family economic security; early childhood and K-12 education; permanency and stability in welfare programs and for immigrant families; and children’s health and safety.

The November 6^th elections are fast approaching, and in addition to the important implications of the presidential race for students, teachers and education advocates, hundreds of down-ticket races will determine policy across the country.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve highlighted some of these key races for you during our biweekly education podcasts.  Take a look back before the campaigns hit the final stretch!

Ever since the Pew Charitable Trusts stopped funding pre-K advocacy and research projects last year, many of us in the early education field have wondered about the fate of the State Preschool Yearbooks that the National Institute for Early Education Research has been publishing since 2002.

Last month, the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative and Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP) partnered to roll out a major expansion to FEBP’s education database. For the first time, the site now includes data on pre-K in states and school districts. In collecting the data, we found states and districts face significant obstacles in collecting reliable, comparable pre-K  data.

While data can seem very technical (and, yes, occasionally boring), in pre-K’s case, the struggle for reliable data gets to the core of thorny issues like the priority that the U.S. places on pre-K. In fact, solving pre-K’s data issues could lay the groundwork for a tectonic shift in the perception of early education in this country.

A commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “School at Age 3. No More 12th Grade” has sparked a round of discussion among many of us here at the Early Education Initiative – but not because we necessarily agree with the sentiment.