The argument is likely to reappear in Juneau, if not next year than sometime in the near future.
The state is entering the third and, perhaps, final year of a test run with state supported pre-kindergarten. The project has reached a half-dozen communities including the village of Minto northwest of Fairbanks.
Discussion last winter over whether to build upon — or even simply continue — that project could be a signal of debate to come. The House Finance Committee holds a bill that, if approved next year, would order state administrators to ink plans for statewide early childhood education.
Proponents say state government in Alaska spends far too little on early childhood education — specifically, on children under 6, when state law generally says they must start heading to school. Rep. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, said Monday the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development spends only a fraction of its budget — he estimated it at one-tenth of 1 percent — on early childhood education.
“I think that’s a huge problem,” he said. He proposed the bill to fund the $150,000 planning project and to weave pre-kindergarten plans in with other early childhood education efforts.
Kawasaki and two colleagues in February also said the state’s executive branch should start preparing for greater financial support for statewide pre-kindergarten programs, an option school districts could — but need not — sign up to administer. Pre-K programs’ universal acceptance could leave them serving more children than Head Start and Early Head Start, which limit acceptance to underprivileged children from lower-income homes.
Yet talk of Kawasaki’s planning measure grew significantly in scope at two scheduled hearings in March. Advocacy groups said the Legislature should think bigger, and suggested the planning project should focus on comprehensive state support for early childhood education — not just on traditional pre-K, over the past two years has generally reached 4-year-olds and early 5-year-olds.
At roughly the same time, however, a House subcommittee shook the ground beneath the three-year test project by placing its $2 million annual budget on the chopping block as it sought cuts within the state’s education department. The House majority caucus has signaled it will push for further scrutiny of school spending in Alaska, a state riddled with high dropout rates and relatively poor student preparedness.
“While there may be some social advantages with pre-K, our main problem is with improving current K-12 so we have educated, civic minded young adults ready to take on other challenges — whether college or the workforce,” Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, said by email Monday.
Pre-K
Kawasaki, however, said a deep body of research into early childhood education justifies House Democrats’ proposal, which is still alive as the Legislature prepares for its early 2012 regular session. His bill cleared the House Education Committee in March, with the chamber’s former and current education chairmen, Reps. Paul Seaton of Homer and Alan Dick of Stony River, both lining up in support.
Later that spring the full Legislature overturned the House subcommittee’s proposed cut to the $2 million-per-year test project after state education managers said its first year, which reached roughly 350 students, had produced solid results — more than 70 percent of students improved their vocabulary levels at expected levels or better.
Previous calls for prime-time pre-kindergarten programs had drawn mixed reaction in Juneau, and House Democrats’ call for statewide pre-K falls into a broader, sometimes confusing discussion of how, and to what degree, state government should fund early education.
Wilson, chairwoman of the education-focused finance subcommittee that recommended the $2 million cut, said she expects the state’s administration may line up in support of expanded government support for early childhood education.
Proponents would have a few options to choose from. Traditional pre-kindergarten programs focus generally on 4-year-olds, and some early education advocates like other services that cover development from birth to age 5. For example, comments at spring legislative hearings suggest Head Start (preschool age) and Early Head Start could use more help. In Fairbanks, municipal leaders asked lawmakers specifically to beef up the state’s Best Beginnings program, a public-private effort that tries to help communities prepare local early childhood education services. Sue Hull, a school board member, told legislators in March the program is more flexible than traditional pre-kindergarten programs.
“In my view, Best Beginnings is a game changer,” she said.
What’s out there
Kawasaki suggested he’s open to compromise when it comes to expanded help for early childhood education. He said an expansion, in whatever form it arrives, would carry significant economic benefits.
“I don’t think there’s any study out there that says early education doesn’t work,” he said.
Kawasaki said other states have done better in acting on unambiguous conclusions, across social scientific research, that early education works and that economic returns from government spending easily eclipse initial investments. He said four of every five states have established statewide pre-kindergarten programs after research consistently associated participation with future success — measured by, among other things, higher future participation in the job market, lower crime and incarceration rates, and greater lifetime earnings.
The McDowell Group, Juneau-based consulting firm, surveyed hundreds of residents for a 2006 study on early education and child care. It concluded five years ago that almost nine in 10 Alaskans felt it was important for state government to help fund early education and child care. Three-quarters said such support was even more important than aid for local governments or new roads and highways, the firm said.
The state’s pre-K test project, started under former Gov. Sarah Palin, has focused on six school districts. In the Yukon-Koyukuk district, it helped administrators open new preschool classrooms in Minto, where managers worked closely with the Tanana Chiefs Conference Head Start program. Another recipient is Allakaket, where teachers incorporated Athabaskan language immersion into programming.
Kawasaki said expanded state emphasis on early childhood education would ease the financial pressures facing school districts and the university system, which collectively spend millions of dollars a year helping underprepared students catch up. Remedial and developmental coursework costs over $2 million at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, representing between 2 and 3 percent of the campus’ direct instructional budget, according to the university chancellor’s office.
The McDowell report, citing a relatively heavy state emphasis on spending for primary and secondary school education, pointed to a well of research that suggests the human brain develops far more rapidly before age four than after. It also highlighted studies that indicate children participating in early education are far more likely to achieve later in school and have less need for special — and costly — attention.
“The implication is that the earlier the investment [in] early education, the higher the return on investment will be,” the firm said.
Kawasaki suggested the state should find room in its upcoming budgets for the type of universal, voluntary program he and colleagues pitched this winter.
“It might cost more,” he said, while adding Alaska would see the same economic returns experienced elsewhere and would “see lasting results over the lifetime of the state.”
Contact staff writer Christopher Eshleman at 459-7582.
Scott Kawasaki loves to spend money and expand the nanny state. Despite what the NEA would have us believe, the returns on this "investment" are marginal outside of a very narrow slice of the preschool population. It is true that at-risk children living in abusive or drug-using homes are likely to benefit from this, namely because they aren't spending all day in a neglectful home, but most other children will simply end up life-stressed by being programmed too early. Children are meant to play. They shouldn't be starting school as toddlers. You will see lasting results from this program, however. One of President Obama's czars has been touting it as a way to indoctrinate (my word, not his) children at an earlier age with outside-of-the-home influences. He advocates requiring all children from age 2 up to be in preschools, touting the supposed educational benefits of starting earlier and earlier. Except that we have been starting earlier and earlier and education standards and performance continue to decline.
Really, folks, look up what is going on at the national level and ask yourselves, do we want it here? Just because the NEA thinks it's a good idea, is it? Are we helping our children or just providing careers for teachers?