Preschool: Enrollments Up, Funding and Quality Uneven

Researchers have announced rapid preschool enrollment growth in a new report, but they caution that most states must improve their programs for their children to receive the enormous benefits only high quality preschool delivers. The National Institute for Early Education Research’s recently released “The State of Preschool: 2005 State Preschool Yearbook” is the third annual national- and state-level profile of the state-funded pre-kindergarten programs. Better programs will require additional funding, as will continued enrollment growth, the report concludes.

Access

Access to state-funded preschool programs has shown strong but uneven progress in the past four years, the report explains. In 2004-2005, these programs served over 17 percent of the nation’s four-year olds, more than Head Start, which served 11 percent. Furthermore, the implementation of Florida’s new state pre-k initiative could add 80,000 to over 100,000 more children in 2005-2006. Oklahoma offers nearly universal preschool education, with over 90 percent of four-year olds enrolled in a state program or Head Start. Notably, of the seven states that serve more than 30 percent of four-year olds, six are located in the South.

In the past four years, enrollment for four-year olds has increased 20 percent, and for three-year olds, eight percent, for a total of over 800,000 served by 38 states during 2004-2005.

But while the overall number of children in pre-kindergarten programs has increased on a national scale, the researchers report enrollment has actually declined in 11 states. The declines were greatest in Massachusetts, Ohio, and New Mexico. Some states where four-year old enrollment grew, like Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Texas, seem to have cut back on enrollment of three-year olds. And 12 states have no program at all.

Quality Standards

Research shows that high quality preschool can dramatically improve high school graduation, employment and earnings, crime and delinquency, and health behaviors; however, many preschool programs are poor to mediocre. Thus, the report establishes ten benchmarks to evaluate state policies and requirements, including:

Teacher degree BA
Teacher specialized training Specializing in Pre-K
Maximum class size 20 or lower
Required monitoring Site visits

Only one state, Arkansas, met all ten benchmarks in 2004-2005, while five states – Alabama, Illinois, North Carolina, Tennessee and New Jersey’s Abbott Program – met nine of ten. The authors are particularly concerned about teacher quality and effectiveness, as only 17 states require all teachers to have a bachelor’s degree, and only 12 states require assistant teachers to have an appropriate similar credential.

Several states have no class size limit or staff/child ratio at all, but 26 states do require class limits of 20 or less and 28 states require ratios of 1:10 or better. Because the components of the checklist address state policies and not actual program quality, the benchmark for monitoring is especially important for understanding program compliance. Twenty-four states require site visits to monitor local programs, “The State of Preschool” reports.

In the past four years, states have been slow to make substantive improvements in quality standards, the researchers note. Since last year, only four states (Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia) have made any policy changes that improved standards.

Resources

State spending on preschool programs varies widely, partly because of different levels of support from local or federal sources (New Jersey’s Abbott initiative received ten times more funding than Maryland’s program). Nevertheless, state spending remains an important indicator of the state’s commitment to providing equal access to quality preschool programs.

While access has improved, state per-pupil funding has actually declined 7.3 percent over the past four years. States have simply cut funding for these programs, or failed to adjust support to keep up with inflation. This is a large concern, the report notes, because

inadequate funding limits access, as well as program quality and effectiveness. Poorly funded programs reach fewer children and can be of such limited quality that they put at risk the gains in children’s learning and development and the high returns to taxpayers that research has shown are possible.

Total statewide spending on preschool programs reached $2.84 billion in 2004-2005, a mere 1 percent of state K-12 budgets that year. The average per-pupil spending was $3,351, in comparison to the average $4,900 spent per-pupil for K-12 education.

The report includes a profile on every state and the nation.

Prepared by Katherine Lu, April 18, 2006