press release | Executive summary | California Highlights
National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) @ the Graduate school of Education, Rutgers University | http://www.nieer.org
26 April 2011 – Washington, D.C. — For the second year in a row preschool-age children felt the effects of the recession only the impact was far greater the second year, according the annual survey of state-funded early education programs.
“Overall, state cuts to preschool funding transformed the recession into a depression for many young children,” said W. Steven Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) and author of the report, The State of Preschool 2010: State Preschool Yearbook.
“In the 2009-2010 school year the effects of the recession became fully apparent despite federal government aid to the states for education,” Barnett said. “Total enrollment barely increased over the prior year. Total spending by the states decreased, and per-child spending declined in inflation-adjusted dollars.”
smf: In a press briefing prior to the report’s release US Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted that pre-K has proven its effectiveness but is susceptible to budget cuts because 3 and 4 year olds can't vote and they don't have a union or hire lobbyists. He also warned against across the board cuts for states. States need to look at what works (pre-K) and cut what doesn't on a state-by-state basis.
Barnett questioned some of the priority-setting being done by state governments. “We don’t eliminate first grade in tough economic times …why do we cut preschool?
“Prioritizing cutting pre-K budgets now is done at the high cost of failure in the future. I was just in Shanghai – as you know one of the leaders in early childhood education. There the government has said that because parents in a recession have less to spend on preschool the government will spend more.”
The funding situation may get worse even as the economy slowly recovers. Federal funds to help states weather the recession are now gone. Without the aid from the federal economic stimulus, funding per child would have been even lower, approaching its lowest level since 2002 when NIEER began tracking state preschool performance.
The Yearbook findings were released today at the Oyster-Adams Bilingual Elementary School by Barnett and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The depth of the decline varied considerably by state. A few made modest progress. Many held steady. In others, cutbacks were sometimes severe.
On the positive side, two states, Alaska and Rhode Island, started programs for the first time. These are the first new states to provide pre-K in many years, though both efforts are modest pilot programs. The top 10 states ranked by percentage of children served at age 4 were Oklahoma, Florida, West Virginia, Georgia, Vermont, Wisconsin, Texas, New York, Arkansas, and Iowa. On the other end of the scale, 10 states still provided no state-funded preschool education programs. They were Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
NIEER reports state rankings on enrollment, spending, and quality standards (how many of 10 benchmarks the state meets). Key findings in this year’s Yearbook include:
Enrollment
- Five states (Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio) now enroll fewer children in state preschool programs than they did 10 years ago.
- Enrollment nationally increased by 26,996 children. Nearly 1.3 million children attended state-funded preschool education, more than 1 million at age 4 alone.
- Fourteen states increased the percent of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K programs by at least one percentage point while seven states decreased by at least one percentage point in the 2009-2010 school year.
- Enrollment of 3-year-olds decreased across the country with nine states cutting enrollment by 10 percent or more. They were Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington.
Spending
- The 2009-2010 school year was the first tracked by NIEER in which total state funding for pre-K fell from the prior year.
- State pre-K spending per child decreased by $114 to $4,028 adjusted for inflation even with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This year NIEER adds a second estimate of per-child spending, $4,212, which reflects a redefinition of California's preschool program.
- State spending per child was almost $700 below its 2001-2002 level.
- After adjusting for inflation, state funding per child declined in 19 of 40 states with programs. While only three states (Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont) increased per-child spending by more than 10 percent, nine states (Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Carolina) cut per-child spending by more than 10 percent.
Quality Standards
- Twenty-three of 40 states failed to fully meet NIEER benchmarks for teacher qualifications and 26 failed to meet the benchmark for assistant teacher qualifications.
- Five state programs met all 10 quality standards. They were Alabama, Alaska, one of the three Louisiana programs, North Carolina, and Rhode Island.
- Four states (Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia) improved on NIEER’s Quality Standards Checklist, but two states (Ohio and Nebraska) lost ground.
Years of research have demonstrated the benefits of high-quality preschool. Compared to children denied high-quality preschool, children who attend are more likely to graduate high school and go on to higher education. They are less likely to require special education or repeat a grade, become teenage parents, or commit crimes as teens or adults, all at great savings to taxpayers. As adults, they are more likely to be qualified to fill the demand for skilled workers that will keep America competitive in the global economy.
Cutting state pre-K puts pressure on the larger system of public supports for early learning that includes federally funded Head Start and child care. Congress is considering steep cuts to Head Start and child care that would further decrease support at a time when parents are less able to pay for early education on their own. Rather than cut federal support for early learning, Congress should find ways to increase support. The President has proposed an Early Learning Challenge Fund to incentivize states to increase and maintain their support rather than cut.
Summing up the findings of the Yearbook, Barnett said:
“America has far to go before every child has access to a high-quality education even at age 4, much less earlier. Yet, in much of the rest of the world this opportunity is taken for granted. As America falls behind in the early education of our children, we also fall behind in school success and economic competitiveness. As we exit the current recession, America will make critical decisions about how much we are willing to invest in our children’s future. Decisions about state pre-K will be among the most important.”
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The National Institute for Early Education Research (www.nieer.org), a unit of the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, supports early childhood education policy by providing objective, nonpartisan information based on research. NIEER is supported through grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts and others.
NIEER Yearbook 2010: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
STATE-FUNDED PRE-K PROGRAMS IN DECLINE NATIONWIDE
In the 2009-2010 school year the effects of the recession became fully apparent despite federal government aid to the states for education. Total enrollment barely increased over the prior year. Total spending by the states decreased, and per child spending declined in inflation-adjusted dollars. Without the aid from federal economic stimulus, funding per child would have been even lower, approaching its lowest level since 2002 when NIEER began tracking spending.
The depth of the decline varies considerably by state. A few states made modest progress. Many held steady.
Others faced cutbacks that were sometimes severe. Overall, state cuts to pre-K transformed the recession into a depression for many young children in the 2009-2010 school year.
All the news was not bad. Alaska and Rhode Island created new pre-K programs in the 2009-2010 school year. These are the first new states to provide pre-K in many years, though both efforts are modest pilot programs. Nationally, pre-K enrollment was just over 26 percent at age 4 as the total across all states increased by nearly 27,000 children.
Yet the bad news outweighed the good. The decline in spending per child comes on top of the previous year’s decline. Many states already failed to provide enough funding to ensure programs could meet minimum quality standards, so this is a serious problem. Rather than raising quality, states are struggling not to lose what they have.
WHAT’S NEW?
• Total state funding for pre-K decreased by nearly $30 million and would have fallen by at least an additional $49.3 million if not for funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This is the first time since NIEER began tracking spending that total spending decreased from the previous year.
• State pre-K spending per child decreased by $114 to $4,028 adjusted for inflation even with ARRA funds.
This year we add a second estimate of per-child spending, $4,212, which reflects a redefinition of California’s preschool program.*
• After adjusting for inflation, state funding per child declined in 19 of 40 states with programs. While three states increased their per-child spending by more than 10 percent, nine states cut per-child spending by more than 10 percent.
• Only 17 states could be verified as providing enough funding to meet all 10 benchmarks for quality standards.
• Enrollment increased by 26,996 children. Nearly 1.3 million children attended state-funded preschool education, more than 1 million at age 4 alone.
• Fourteen states increased the percent of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K programs by at least one percentage point, while seven states decreased by at least one percentage point in the 2009-2010 school year.
• Two states had programs for the first time this year—Alaska and Rhode Island.
• Combining general and special education enrollments, 31 percent of 4-year-olds and 8 percent of 3-year-olds are served across the states.
• Four states improved on NIEER’s Quality Standards Checklist, while two states lost ground on standards.
• Twenty-three of 40 states failed to fully meet NIEER benchmarks for teacher qualifications and 26 failed to meet the benchmark for assistant teacher qualifications.†
THE PICTURE IN CALIFORNIA IS SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT, SOMEWHAT CONFUSING AND HIGHLIGHTED WITH A LARGE ASTERISK
It all started out well enough....
In 1965, California became one of the first states in the nation to make state-funded preschool education available through the State Preschool Program (CSPP). The state later established the Prekindergarten and Family Literacy Program (PKFLP) in the 2007-2008 school year, modeling the initiative after CSPP. PKFLP provided either half- or full-day services with an added literacy component to children who are from families at or below 75 percent of the state median income (SMI), are receiving protective services, or are at risk for abuse, neglect, or family violence.
The California State Preschool Program Act was signed into law in 2008, with the purpose of streamlining funding for the state’s multiple preschool programs. As of July 1, 2009, all part-day and full-day programs in CSPP and PKFLP, as well as General Child Care programs that served preschool age children, were consolidated into a newly formed California State Preschool Program. The program provides 3- and 4-year-old children with part- and full-day services through local education agencies, colleges, community action agencies, and private nonprofit agencies.
Unless children are receiving protective services or have been referred as at risk of abuse, neglect, or exploitation, families must have an income of 75 percent of the SMI to be eligible for the program.
State funding for the current State Preschool Program is provided to school districts, private child care and faith- based centers, and Head Start agencies and other public agencies through a competitive application process.
Eligibility is limited to children ages 3 to 5 from families with an income below 75 percent of the SMI or to children who have experienced or are at risk for abuse, neglect, or exploitation.
In 2008, California also developed and published the California Preschool Learning Foundations, a set of early learning standards focusing on social-emotional development, language and literacy, English language development, and mathematics. Although these standards have not yet been implemented, a second volume of the California Preschool Learning Foundations focusing on visual and performing arts and physical development and health will be released in the spring of 2011. The California State Preschool Program uses the Desired Results for Children and Families system, which has been aligned with the Preschool Learning Foundations Volume I, to record children’s development and to plan curriculum and other developmentally appropriate activities.
* Due to changes in the California State Preschool Program, funding and enrollment figures for the 2009-2010 school year represent the effects of program consolidation rather than an actual increase over previous years.
In prior years, California funded child care programs with the same standards as state preschool, but because eligibility was based on parental work status and income NIEER did not count them as preschool. In 2009, California merged these child care programs into state preschool. With this policy change, preschool data from California are no longer consistent with those from previous years. Therefore, we report two figures for spending in the 2009-2010 school year. The first ($4,028) nets out the effect of the California policy change on the national average to produce a figure consistent with prior years. The second ($4,212) calculates a new national average that includes. California’s consolidated preschool. Note that because California did not increase enrollment or funding, this higher figure is purely the result of program redefinition.
The State of Preschool 2010
http://nieer.org/yearbook/
by W. Steven Barnett, Ph.D., Dale J. Epstein, Ph.D., Megan E. Carolan, Jen Fitzgerald, Debra J. Ackerman, Ph.D., Allison H. Friedman, Ed.M.
The 2010 State Preschool Yearbook is the eighth in a series of annual reports profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. This latest Yearbook presents data on state-funded prekindergarten during the 2009-2010 school year. The first report in this series focused on programs for the 2001-2002 school year and established a baseline against which we may now measure progress over nine years. Tracking these trends is essential, since changes in states' policies on preschool education will influence how successfully America's next generation will compete in the knowledge economy.
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Executive Summary |
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The 2010 Yearbook is organized into three major sections. The first section offers a summary of the data, and describes national trends for enrollment in, quality of, and spending on preschool. The second section presents detailed profiles outlining each state's policies with respect to preschool access, quality standards, and resources for the 2009-2010 program year. In addition to providing basic program descriptions, these state profiles describe unique features of a state's program and recent changes that can be expected to alter the future Yearbook statistics on a program. Profile pages are again included for states without state-funded programs. A description of our methodology follows the state profiles. The last section of the report contains appendices, which are available online only. The appendices include tables that provide the complete 2009-2010 survey data obtained from every state, as well as Head Start, child care, U.S. Census, and special education data.
State-funded preschool programs represent an important and sizeable component of the nation's patchwork of early childhood education programs. The National Institute for Early Education Research has developed the State Preschool Yearbook series to provide information on services offered through these programs to children at ages 3 and 4. We hope that this report will serve as a resource for policymakers, advocates, and researchers to make more informed decisions as state-funded preschool education moves forward.
While parents strive to guide children's growth and development in the home, state and local governments bear primary responsibility for classroom-based education in the United States. Programs that serve young children operate under a variety of names and auspices, including the federal Head Start program as well as privately and publicly funded child care. State prekindergarten programs will play an increasingly important role as part of this larger array of programs. The Yearbook seeks to improve the public's knowledge and understanding of state efforts to expand the availability of high-quality education to young children in the 21st century.
Limited time offer: Receive a free printed copy of the Yearbook
To receive a free printed copy of the 2010 State Preschool Yearbook, please e-mail your name and mailing address to yearbook@nieer.org. Complimentary copies of some previous editions are also available.
View the complete report (8MB PDF)
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