Early Ed Roundup: Week of June 16 – June 20

House Panel Votes to End ‘Reading First’

A House Appropriations subcommittee voted on Thursday to stop funding the Reading First program, which brings scientifically-based reading instruction to children in grades K-3. Congress already cut the program’s budget by over 60 percent –from $1 billion to $393 million–for the current fiscal year. President Bush hoped to restore funding to $1 billion this year.The vote comes after a preliminary federal evaluation of the program, released in May, that found no statistically significant impact on reading comprehension in Reading First schools. Committee chairman David Obey also pointed to an earlier investigation by the Department of Education Inspector General that found conflicts of interest and mismanagement of the program. Others, however, have raised important caveats about the evaluation, and the Department has also taken steps to address issues raised in the investigation. Congress should consider the potential impact on schools and students and support improvements in the program rather than eliminating it entirely.

Great First Year for Pennsylvania Pre-K

Students in the Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts program showed a 58 percent increase in meeting targets for early education language and literacy skills after one year of pre-k. An assessment of the year-old program, which serves 11,000 children across the state, also shows a 68 percent increase in the number of children showing age-appropriate social and emotional skills and a 51 percent increase in children showing age-appropriate use of behaviors to meet needs. Gov. Ed Rendell (D) proposed a $12.5 million increase in the program’s budget next year, which would expand the program to 1,000 more children in the state. In addition to its impressive growth, Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts is a high-quality program that is focused on making sure all teachers have a B.A. degree by 2011.

Louisiana Passes New Orleans Voucher Plan

The Louisiana Senate passed a new voucher plan for children in New Orleans, clearing a final legislative hurdle and ensuring that some form of the proposal will land on the desk of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who is expected to approve it. Currently the plan will provide $6,300 scholarships to 1,500 low-income children in grades K-3 to attend private, mostly Catholic schools. There are questions, however, whether private schools in the city will have enough capacity to accommodated that many students. Some estimates say that actual program capacity would not be able to exceed 600.

Pre-K Enrollment Bucking the Trend in Maine

School enrollment in Maine has dropped by 13,000 students in the past decade, but pre-k is booming. Enrollment figures even suggest that pre-k may be playing a role in keeping more families enrolled in Maine’s public schools. The Kennebec Journal reports that state and district level pre-k programs, many of which began in the last two years, are gaining in popularity, prompting plans to expand quicker than expected. Next step for Maine: work on quality. The state pre-k program meets only four of ten NIEER pre-k quality benchmarks.