Education Week - February 13, 2019 - 20

Governors Lead Charge for Early-Education Programming
By Christina A. Samuels
After campaigning on the expansion of preschool and other earlychildhood programs, many of the
nation's newly elected governors are
following through with budget proposals that include money to support
children from cradle to school entry.
One of the largest proposals is
from California, where Democratic
Gov. Gavin Newsom is in the enviable position of having a budget
surplus projected at more than $20
billion. He has floated the largest
proposal from a governor thus far,
aiming to spend $1.8 billion on an
array of programs including expansion of full-day kindergarten, free
preschool for children from lowincome families with the aim of
making the program universal, and
increased subsidies for child care,
among other initiatives.
In Colorado, newly elected Gov.
Jared Polis, also a Democrat, used
his State of the State address to advocate for more than $200 million
that would allow all of Colorado's
school districts to offer full-day
kindergarten. The state currently
reimburses districts for about a
half-day of instruction; districts may
choose to offer just a half day of programming, but others offer full-day
programs by charging parents tuition, through local tax revenue, or
through their own general budgets.
Polis also wants to expand the statefunded preschool program in order

to offer slots to 8,000 additional children, up from about 21,000 3- and
4-year-olds currently enrolled.
"Our state's strong economic
growth means we have the power to
do all of this right now without tak-

You see governors
and candidates... not
only having earlychildhood issues as
part of their platform
but highlighting
them on the
campaign trail."
AARON LOEWENBERG
New America

ing resources away from other areas
of the budget," Polis said at his Jan.
10 speech. "As Uncle Ben once said to
Spider-Man, 'With great power comes
great responsibility.' I know that together we can fulfill this responsibility,
which many of you have been working
on for years: free kindergarten now."
Mike DeWine, the new Republican
governor of Ohio, created a state office

for children's initiatives immediately
after he was sworn in on Jan. 14. During his campaign, DeWine said he
would expand access to home-visiting
programs for pregnant women and
young children, as well as create more
slots for children to attend high-quality state-funded preschool.
In New Mexico, early-childhood advocates have long supported taking
some money from the state's Land
Grant Permanent Fund to pay for
preschool, and they have a supporter
in Michelle Lujan Grisham, the new
Democratic governor. Lujan Grisham,
in her address to state lawmakers,
said she supports taking "a responsible pinch of additional money from
our Permanent School Fund, ensuring we can deliver an education system that works for every child and
every family in this state."

On the Bandwagon
And it's not just the new governors who are taking action on early
childhood. Several governors who
were reelected are continuing their
work in this area.
For example, Democrat Gina
Raimondo, who was re-elected in
Rhode Island, is advocating for
a phased expansion of universal
pre-K in her state. And Republican Kay Ivey of Alabama plans
to continue her embrace of earlychildhood programming as part of
the "Strong Start, Strong Finish"
initiative started in 2017.

States Reap Federal Preschool Grants
By Christina A. Samuels
Almost every state has now been awarded a share of
a federal grant intended to help pay for strategic planning in its early-childhood system.
The Preschool Development Grants, which were
awarded last month, have the same name as when they
first started under the Obama administration. And, for
the first grant cycle, they've been funded at $250 million, just as the Obama-era grant program was.
But almost nothing else is the same.
The program has been moved from the auspices
of the U.S. Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services. The older program was intended to help states expand or create
preschool programs for 4-year-olds from low-income
families, while the new program aims to help states
with activities such as building partnerships among
different entities such as Head Start, state and local
agencies. The new program also supports sharing
best practices among providers, and maximizing parental choice and knowledge about early-childhood
options.
The old program said that if states gave grant money
to local districts or early-childhood providers, those organizations had to form strong partnerships with one another. The new grant program has no such requirement.
The new grant awards range from $538,000 to
$10.6 million, and were awarded to 44 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Only
Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming did not receive money through
the new grant program. In announcing the grants, the
Health and Human Services Department did not indicate if any state applications were rejected.
The older preschool development grants were
awarded to only 18 states, and the individual grant

awards ranged from $2 million to $25 million. Tennessee, which did not receive funding this time around,
was a recipient through the older grant program.
Since all states have young children, "taking stock
and figuring out what the needs are is an important
exercise," said Laura Bornfreund, the director of early
and elementary education policy with the think tank
New America. The question still to be answered, however, is how states can sustain that work, she said.

Using the Money
Alabama received a $10.6 million grant this time
around, among nine states that received more than
$10 million. The state was also one of the 18 that received money from the older program, which it used to
develop its preschool program.
Jeana Ross, the secretary of the Alabama Department
of Early Childhood Education, said this money will help
strengthen the state's birth-through-5 early-childhood
initiatives. Among the state's plans are to do an extensive needs assessment, "so we can see what we have, and
where the gaps may be," Ross said. "Then we can create a
real strategic plan that would be relevant to anyone who
would be providing birth-to-5 resources and supports for
children."
The Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness got a
little over $3 million through the new grant program, and
plans to use the money to accelerate its work in helping
state entities collaborate with one another, said Debra
Andersen, the organization's executive director. It will
also help support professional development and capacity
building.
Getting parents involved is also a key goal, she said.
"We're going to build on some work we've been doing to
get the family voice much stronger into the planning
process," she said.

20 | EDUCATION WEEK | February 13, 2019 | www.edweek.org

"Clearly, our students are making
significant gains through our highquality pre-K program, however,
now our challenge is to continue
building on that success," Ivey told
a meeting of Alabama early-education professionals at a conference
this month.
Movement at the state level suggests that the creative thinking
and sizable investments in early
childhood are bubbling up from the
states and in some cases large cities like Philadelphia and New York,
which have their own programs.
That's a turnaround from the
years of the Obama administration.
It sent hundreds of millions of dollars to states for spending on earlychildhood programs, but the federal
government was fairly prescriptive
on how that money could be spent.
Congress kept one policy initiative from the Obama years: the
$250 million Preschool Development Grant program. But the renewed program, which granted
money to 45 states and localities in
January, can be spent on children
from birth through age 5. Previously, the program was more narrowly aimed at preschool.

Congressional Hands-Off
Also, Congress has intentionally
taken a more hands-off approach
in the renewed grant program; for
example, the old program had requirements around the length of a
preschool day and teacher qualifications; the new program has none
of those mandates.
"I think right now it's unrealistic to expect a big push for pre-K
from the federal government," said
Aaron Loewenberg, a education
policy analyst with the think tank
New America, who has been following governors' actions in the earlychildhood arena.
"For the first time you see governors and gubernatorial candidates
not only having early-childhood
issues as part of their platform,
but highlighting them on the campaign trail," Loewenberg said. One
reason, he said, is that candidates
see early childhood as a winning
issue. "It doesn't seem to have a lot
of downside," he said.
And the governors also are getting into granular details and looking at early childhood as a whole,
not just as one program, such as
preschool.
The California initiative proposed
by Newsom "is unique in just how
comprehensive it is," said Kim Patillo Brownson, the vice president
for policy and strategy for First
Five LA, which supports program
for young children in Los Angeles
County. "Also what is noteworthy and unique is there is a clear
focus on disparities between rich
and poor. Equity is a part of this
agenda."
Newsom's ambitious plans are
complemented by a state legislature
that is also interested in programs
for children, Patillo Brownson said.
Previous increases in early-childhood spending have been difficult,
she said.

"The prior governor never opened
the new year with a package investing in young children," she
said. "The two primary branches
of government that need to move
together are coming from a similar
frame in wanting to invest in the
next generation."
In Ohio, DeWine's focus on
home-visiting as one of his earlychildhood priorities is noteworthy,
said Shannon Jones, the executive director of the advocacy group
Groundwork Ohio. Home-visiting
programs provide trained counselors to work one-on-one with vulnerable parents and young children,
sometimes for multiple years.
DeWine has proposed tripling the
number of children served in home
visiting programs in the state,
which currently pays for more than
7,000 children through state funds.
(An additional 2,000 are served
through federal money distributed
to states.) He has also proposed
increasing state spending on earlychildhood programs from $250 million to about $400 million annually.
"You can imagine why we're so
excited about such a strong stance
there," Jones said.
In Colorado, Polis has proposed a
financial plan that would address
two issues for parents of young children. He would increase the state's
contribution to school districts so
that they would receive the same
amount of funding for kindergarten as they do for other grades.
Currently, the state pays only a
little over half of a kindergarten
day. However, 80 percent of the
state's kindergartners are in a fullday program. The additional cost is
paid for through tuition from parents, or through local tax dollars.

'ZIP Code' Inequity
"It's a quintessential example
of how your ZIP code determines
your opportunity," said Bill Jaeger,
the vice president of early childhood and policy initiatives for the
Colorado Children's Campaign.
"You might be fortunate enough
to live in a community that offers
free full-day kindergarten, but you
know that they're pulling from
somewhere else to offer that."
The state also funds some state
preschool slots, which districts use
to pay for a full kindergarten day.
Polis' plan to pump more than $200
million money into kindergarten
would mean freeing up money that
can be used for preschool.
Shifting those dollars, plus adding about $13 million for more preschool slots, should create about
8,000 spots for preschool, enough to
eliminate the current waiting list
for children whose parents would
like to get them in the program.
Preschool and free, full-day kindergarten have been on the policy
agenda in Colorado for decades,
Jaeger said. Right now, the legislature and the governor's office appear to be aligned in a way to support those goals, he said.
"The economy and the revenue
is going to open the door to getting
this done," he said.

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Education Week - February 13, 2019

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