NIEER newsletter

Hot Topics

NIEER Releases State of Preschool 2008 Yearbook
NIEER's annual analysis of state-funded preschool programs, released today at the Oyster-Adams Bilingual School in Washington, D.C., shows impressive expansion in enrollment and spending. Key findings in The State of Preschool 2008 include these:

• Enrollment increased by more than 108,000 children. More than 1.1 million children attended state-funded preschool education, 973,178 at age 4 alone.
• Thirty-three of the 38 states with state-funded programs increased enrollment.
• Based on NIEER's Quality Standards Checklist, 11 states improved the quality of their preschool programs. Only one fell back.
• State funding for pre-K rose to almost $4.6 billion. Funding for state pre-K from all reported sources exceeded $5.2 billion, an increase of nearly $1 billion (23 percent) over the previous year.

The new yearbook is available online.

Ed Secretary Arne Duncan Speaks at Preschool Yearbook Release
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined NIEER Director Steve Barnett for the yearbook release. "Early childhood education is an economic stimulus package," he told the crowd. Duncan underscored the need for high-quality programs if they are to be effective and outlined the various ways the economic stimulus package invests in early education, from expanding Head Start and Early Head Start to doing more for children with special needs to providing first time parents with home visits.

Duncan said President Obama's Zero to Five initiative supported by the fiscal year 2010 budget will leverage investments in early childhood education across the country to increase program quality, support coordination among programs and provide parents with information to choose the best programs for their children. He reiterated the president's plan to establish a Presidential Early Learning Council to examine better ways to integrate preschool programs and resources. "We are eager to listen ... but we are also issuing a challenge," Duncan said, referring to the need to raise program quality and the administration's plan to issue Early Learning Challenge Grants to reward quality and innovation. "Your preschool yearbook shows even though the quality of state preschool is up, five states meet fewer than half of the NIEER quality benchmarks. That's five too many," he said. Video of the yearbook release is available from C-SPAN.

Barnett: Outlook for State Pre-K is Uncertain, Proposes Federal Initiative
The difficult economy and sharply declining state revenues have combined to darken the outlook for the immediate future of state-funded preschool, NIEER Director Steve Barnett warned the group. He pointed out that in most states expenditures on pre-K are entirely discretionary and therefore easier to cut than expenditures for K-12 education. Barnett warned that several of the biggest states are considering enrollment cuts, reductions in program standards, and/or postponement of expansion plans — this despite the availability of new federal stimulus funds. Nine states have already cut funding for state pre-K and more have cuts under consideration. Perhaps the most disastrous proposal so far is legislation in the North Carolina Senate that proposes to zero out funding to the North Carolina Department of Education for More at Four, one of only two programs in the country that meets all 10 of NIEER's benchmarks for quality standards. The state Senate would substitute more poorly funded services through child care, though supposedly with the same standards.

Barnett pointed out that state pre-K receives no direct help from the federal stimulus package and that a new federal program to support state pre-K would be a big plus for expanding quality and enrollment. "We propose that the federal government commit to doubling the rate of growth in state pre-K while raising state quality standards so that by the year 2020 all 4-year-olds in America will have access to a good education," Barnett said. To do this, he said the federal government should match state spending with up to $2,500 for every additional child enrolled in state pre-K programs meeting basic quality standards. In addition, the federal government should facilitate increased integration of child care, Head Start, and state pre-K. NIEER's news release is available online.