A State Legislatures Magazine Article: States Get Serious About Preschools

States Get Serious About Preschool

State Legislatures Magazine--June 1999

Good early childhood education is fueling a push for better preschool programs for all children.

By Julie Poppe

Recent findings on how children's brains develop and what affects intelligence in those early formative years are bolstering development of state preschool policies. Research that links good early childhood education to future school success, less crime and better jobs is fueling a push for better preschool programs for all children.

To help boost the chances of children's success later in life, 39 states fund prekindergarten programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, according to a recent report commissioned by the Families and Work Institute. This past year, legislators in at least eight states, including Missouri, which used riverboat gambling funds to support its program, translated the positive research on early childhood development into policy by providing more state money for preschools before a child's enrollment in kindergarten.

A handful of states pay for preschool programs for all 4-year-old children in the state. Others continue to focus on early learning for low-income families, like adding state money to Head Start, or supporting connections between Head Start, prekindergarten and child care. The 39 states that fund half- or full-day pre-k programs are profiled in the report with details on how they make their preschools work.

Highlights of the report show:

Thirty-seven states fund state prekindergarten programs in communities and schools, and 13 supplement the federal Head Start program.
States invest from $1 million per year to well over $200 million annually to serve anywhere from a few hundred children to more than 40,000.
Ten states use an income eligibility level. Five limit participation to children at or below the federal poverty level. Several others target prekindergarten money to schools or districts with a minimum percentage of children from low-income families.
All states use age eligibility levels with 14 limiting services to 4-year-olds. Two states include 5-year-olds who are not yet kindergarten eligible, and three include children from birth to kindergarten.
Eight states encourage or require programs to have national accreditation, and 16 require specific pre-k program standards.
Two-thirds of the states require an evaluation of prekindergarten programs.

A copy of the full report can be found on the Internet at www.familiesandworkinst.org/announce/index.html For more information about this report, contact Anne Mitchell, amitchell@aol.com.