Plans for Pre-K Give Priority to Needy Pupils
Todd Silberman, News and Observer
May17, 2001

Needy 4-year-olds who have never benefited from day care or other early-childhood services would be first in line for an academic prekindergarten program being developed by the Easley administration.

Beginning in the 2001-02 school year with 1,500 to 1,700 youngsters, North Carolina 's first state-funded preschool program could grow over five years to reach as many as 40,000 4-year-olds, according to recommendations developed by a task force.

Public schools, child-care centers and Head Start programs would provide the pre-kindergarten classes. To receive the state funding, they would have to meet new educational standards to be developed for the program.

State schools Superintendent Mike Ward, who helped lead the task force that drafted the plan for Gov. Mike Easley, said prekindergarten classes will make a difference for children who struggle to achieve.

"Investments in early childhood education and better alignment with what research says helps kids will pay dividends," Ward said. "I think we're taking the right steps."

The prekindergarten plan is now in the hands of Easley, whose budget proposal for next year includes $ 6.5 million to launch his"More at Four" initiative. Easley made prekindergarten for at-risk 4-year-olds a key plank in his campaign platform last year.

The proposal also follows a ruling by Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. that the state must provide prekindergarten classes for low-income children who are at risk of school failure, to meet its constitutional obligation to
provide all children with the opportunity for a "sound basic education."

Education and child-care experts who helped develop the plan said it would allow the state to capitalize on existing programs - including Smart Start early childhood efforts - by setting clear educational standards for all prekindergarten classes that receive state money.

"Having a design for the program that ensures high quality is critical," said Richard Clifford, co-director of the National Center for Early Development and Learning at UNC-Chapel Hill, "so that children are doing things that are tied to educational goals."

Teachers in the prekindergarten classes would be expected to hold, or commit themselves to obtain, certification in early childhood education. Classes would be limited to 18 students, with every classroom also staffed with a teacher assistant.

All programs would follow an approved, research-based curriculum on a 180-day calendar with 6 1/2 hours of daily class time.

To be eligible, day-care centers and other programs would be required to meet specific licensing standards for high-quality centers set by the N.C. Division of Child Development.

The planning effort was led by Ward and Carmen Hooker Buell, state secretary of health and human services. They propose a similar joint leadership arrangement at the local level. Planning for community prekindergarten programs would include representatives of local schools and Smart Start organizations.

"We believe that this needs to be a collaborative effort between the education community and child-care community," Hooker Buell said. "We want to make sure that everyone understands that this is co-equal. Child care can't run it, and the education community can't drive it."

A state More at Four office would review proposals from counties seeking state grants for the pre-kindergarten program. Some local funding would be required, which could come from Smart Start, the federal Head Start program, federal education funds that can be used for prekindergarten classes, or other community sources.

Several factors would be weighed to determine whether a child was at risk of school failure and thus eligible for public prekindergarten. They include family income, health problems or disability, educational level and employment status of the child's mother or guardian, family composition and housing situation, English proficiency and minority status.

About 42,600 of the state's 106,500 4-year-olds are considered at risk of academic failure, the governor's office says. Of those, more than 75 percent are being served through either Head Start, a public school prekindergarten or a state-funded child-care subsidy. Still, many of those programs would fall
short of the proposed educational standards under the prekindergarten plan.

For the 25 percent of children not being served now, planners are calling for an aggressive publicity campaign to recruit them through social service epartments, housing departments, public health centers and other locations.

But the biggest challenge for the new programs may lie with finding enough qualified teachers.

"This has been the problem in every state with prekindergarten programs," said Sue Russell, executive director of Child Care Services Association, a nonprofit agency focusing on quality and access issues. "We don't have teachers with these certifications sitting there waiting for this to happen."