Too Little, Too Late
By Katharine B. Stevens
OP-ED
June 10, 2015
Minnesota's fascinating preschool battle drags on, highlighting crucial questions for the expansion of early education across the country. On the one side is Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, along with the state commissioner of education and the Minnesota teachers union, which has been pushing to add universal pre-K to K-12 public schools for all the state's 47,000 4-year-olds regardless of income. On the other side are the state's early education advocates, who've largely aligned in favor of a successful voucher program with growing bipartisan support – called "Early Learning Scholarships" – targeted specifically at low-income 3- and 4-year-olds.
The drama escalated a few weeks ago when Dayton vetoed a $17 billion education bill that didn't include his signature universal pre-K initiative. Dayton's veto forces Minnesota's divided state Legislature into a special summer session, further complicated by a long-planned state Capitol renovation that leaves lawmakers without a place to work. At a May 19 news conference announcing his veto, Dayton blamed Republicans legislators for the impasse, adding that "[t]hey hate the public schools" and suggesting they hold the now-required special session in a tent. (When Republicans asked for an apology, Dayton responded: "If they want to prove me wrong they should vote for universal pre-K. Then I'll apologize.")
After returning to the bargaining table ahead of the yet-to-be-scheduled special session, the governor and Legislature have now agreed on a revised education budget that doesn't include universal pre-K but increases allocations for early childhood by 52 percent – up $95 million for a total of $280 million over the next two years. This includes a $48 million increase for Early Learning Scholarships, almost doubling funding to a total of $104 million, along with a new $3.5 million allocation to expand a statewide quality rating system for early childhood programs. (The additional $44 million increase will be split among new pre-K programs in the public schools, Head Start and home visiting.)
This would seem to be a pretty big win for early childhood, made possible because Dayton backed off his immediate demand for universal pre-K. But the governor also said that he's going to "make sure" that universal pre-K gets enacted "next session or the session after that … for the benefit of all 4 year olds," which raises the larger question: What's the purpose of early education in the first place? To add a grade for 4-year-olds to the public schools or to level the playing field for disadvantaged kids? As one opponent of Dayton's universal pre-K plan observed: "The definition of the problem has been switched somehow" from "'How do we close the achievement gap?' to 'Wouldn't it be nice if all 4-year-olds could go to their neighborhood schools?'"
In fact, according to the Minnesota Department of Education, most 4-year-olds in Minnesota seem to be doing fine without universal pre-K. The department reported that in 2013, nearly 73 percent of the state's children entered kindergarten ready and "on track for meeting achievement targets" on Minnesota's third-grade state tests. That leaves 27 percent of kids who need extra help. But it's hard to see how starting these kids in the Minnesota public schools a year earlier is going to be the game changer they really need.
For the most disadvantaged children, nine months of pre-K is simply too little too late. If the goal is to ensure that at-risk children enter K-12 with a strong foundation for success, sending all 4-year-olds to the public schools doesn't make much sense. Rather, the state should continue to do what it's already doing: build on the successful scholarship program to further expand access to high-quality preschool programs (both public and private), increase infant and toddler home visiting programs that support at-risk young children and their families and improve the quality of child care for low-income working parents.
Furthermore, it's not actually clear that adding pre-K programs to the public schools would do much for at-risk kids since Minnesota's schools have long been failing the very disadvantaged children those programs are ostensibly aimed to help. The state's achievement gaps are among the highest in the nation. In 2013, only 22 percent of low-income eighth-graders and 16 percent of African-American eighth graders were proficient in reading. In 2014, high school graduation rates across the state were 66 percent for low-income students, 63 percent for Latino students, 60 percent for black students and 51 percent for Native American students. Just 16 percent of African-American students met college readiness standards in 2013, and from 2006 to 2012, more than one in four Minnesota public high school graduates who went on to college in Minnesota needed remedial classes. Why would the Minnesota public schools be expected to do any better with pre-K than they've done with the 13 grades they already have?
Awarding an exclusive pre-K contract to a single provider with such a weak track record in serving disadvantaged children is like a mail-order business giving an exclusive shipping contract to a company that loses half the packages. Lawmakers were correct in refusing to do so. The agreed-on 52 percent budget increase for early childhood reflects an impressive commitment to helping the state's at-risk kids. And Minnesota's innovative, sensible approach – targeting disadvantaged children from birth to the age of 5 through a decentralized, quality-based, choice-driven system – provides a valuable model for other states now scaling up efforts to ensure the well-being of young children.
See Also
Op-Ed ~ May 12, 2015
Op-Ed ~ September 1, 2015
Op-Ed ~ March 9, 2015