Today, the House Select Committee on Early Childhood Education Development will meet to discuss changes to North Carolina’s pre-kindergarten programs, called NC Pre-K. The committee’s five recommendations include the following:
1. Continue funding and monitoring of early childhood programs in North Carolina
2. Clarify the definition of “at risk” for NC Pre-K program eligibility
3. Encourage increased participation in the NC Pre-K program by private child care providers
4. Develop the capability to assess and follow child development and progress across agencies
5. Increase pre-kindergarten teacher quality related to early language and literacy development
The first and fourth recommendations are straightforward. The size and scope of North Carolina’s pre-kindergarten programs necessitate strong transparency and accountability measures. Both recommendations would advance these measures.
The fifth recommendation would require pre-kindergarten teachers to “obtain a Birth-Kindergarten teacher license.” Unfortunately, this proposal, if implemented statewide, would raise costs, increase bureaucracy, and produce negligible gains in early language and literacy instruction. Last year, the General Assembly voted to discard pre-kindergarten certification requirements, and I believe that they made a good decision to do so.
The third recommendation is controversial because it would not allow public schools to manage pre-kindergarten programs. Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, private preschools would receive multi-year contracts to operate pre-kindergarten programs throughout the state.
The year and a half planning period is sufficient to achieve the migration of services from public to private facilities. I suspect that this would solve the problem of locating private pre-kindergarten programs in rural and sparsely populated communities. Indeed, if the local public school is no longer in the mix, it is critical to build capacity among providers and increase awareness of the their programs among low-income families.
While I have some reservations about the plan, I believe that strengthening transparency and accountability (Recommendations 1 and 4) are key. At minimum, additional transparency and accountability measures would satisfy some of those who are anxious about the use of public funds at private facilities.
I support the third recommendation. Changing the eligibility requirements to focus primarily on low-income children is sound, research-based policy. I concur with the findings of the committee,
The Committee finds that a substantial body of longitudinal research indicates positive learning outcomes from the provision of high-quality early childhood education programs to children whose families live in poverty. The most significant effects appear to be with children from more adverse conditions.
In sum, pre-kindergarten programs for impoverished children provide the best return on investment for taxpayers and, more importantly, the participating families.
The most recent longitudinal evaluation of More at Four – the precursor to NC Pre-K – revealed a significant increase in the number of participating families who did not qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch, i.e., families who have annual incomes over 185 percent of poverty.
In 2008-2009, for example, almost 12 percent of More at Four families exceeded the income threshold for a free or reduced-price lunch. Using current National School Lunch Program (NSLP) guidelines, a family of four who makes more than $41,348 annually does not qualify as “low-income” under NSLP guidelines, but thousands of parents in this income bracket received More at Four funding because their children had “other” risk factors as defined by More at Four eligibility guidelines.
In other words, I suspect that some low-income children remain on wait lists for preschool programs because higher-income families, albeit families with children who have one or more risk factors, occupy their slots. Unfortunately, I cannot find adequate demographic data on the waitlist families, so it is difficult to know for sure. Indeed, wait lists only became an issue when Judge Howard Manning decided they were an issue last year.
By revising the eligibility requirements, the recommendations of the House Select Committee on Early Childhood Education Development would ensure that NC Pre-K prioritizes the educational needs of North Carolina’s poorest families.
