Questions on the State of Pre-K in the States

Will state-funded pre-k programs be able to sustain their enrollments under the stress of current state budgets? This was one of the questions posed to me in a recent a Q-and-A with Early Years, a new blog by Ed Week.

A few developments in areas around the country could give the impression that communities are rallying around their early childhood programs and fending off cuts to their budgets. Blogger Maureen Kelleher asked: Does this mean that pre-kindergarten programs will come out of the recession in better shape than expected? As I said in the post, “It would be nice to think so, but I’m afraid it is just too early to tell.”

See the post for more details, as well as responses to questions about the state of state-funded pre-k generally and the little we know about how states have used funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to improve early childhood programs. For more up-to-date information, be sure to keep tabs on the Leadership Matters web site produced by  Pre-K Now and the Pew Center on the States. With a drop-down menu and interactive map, the site provides state-by-state information on governors’ proposals for the next fiscal year’s budget and will soon be providing information on how each states’ finalized budgets match up with those proposals.

P.S. We’ve been meaning to welcome Early Years to the blogosphere. It’s great to have company. (Note: In case you’re confused, there is another blog with a similar name that we’ve mentioned in the past and highly recommend: The Early Years from the National Science Teachers Association.) We also want to make sure our readers know about other blogs on early childhood issues, policy and research that have opened in recent months. Several were mentioned back in August. Since then, we’ve had a few other newcomers, including  Emergent Learner, by J.M. Holland (who had been writing for Inside Pre-K, a Pre-K Now blog that recently closed down) and Sara Mead’s Policy Notebook, which provides insights from our friend and colleague Sara Mead, former director of the Early Education Initiative here at New America. (See our blogroll at the right for a full list.)