House Education Committee Advances Federal Support for Pre-K

Earlier today we wrote about legislation that the District of Columbia passed last month to establish universal pre-k here in Washington, D.C. Today D.C.’s other legislative body–Congress–took a small step towards helping more states follow the District’s example here.

The House Committee on Education and Labor today approved H.R. 3289, the PRE-K Act, sponsored by Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai’i), which creates a partnership between the federal government and the states to improve pre-k quality and access.

Hirono’s bill gets it right by focusing on pre-k quality first and foremost. To be eligible to receive funding, states would have to have pre-k programs that meet certain quality standards–including standards for curriculum, class size, and teacher qualifications. States that don’t already have such programs in place could also receive funding to help them get to higher quality. Once states have high-quality programs in place, they could use up to 50 percent of funds to expand pre-k access in low-income communities, but the majority of investment would go towards quality. The bill also recognizes that any federal effort to improve pre-k quality and access has to be in partnership with states, and seeks to use new federal investments to leverage increased state pre-k spending. That’s essential because states must be the primary player when it comes to pre-k–but the federal government can help by giving them a nudge, combined with help. Hirono’s bill does exactly that.

While we think this bill is a step in the right direction, there are a few changes we’d like to see to it. In particular, we’d like to see an increased focus on PK-3 alignment, which currently receives scant attention in the bill. The definition of quality that Hirono and her staff have incorporated is good, but to be truly high-quality pre-k programs must have curricula, standards, and teaching strategies aligned with those of the early elementary programs that children will enter after pre-k, so that what children learn in pre-k feeds seamlessly into the early elementary years. But there’s still time for Congress to address that ommission.

Committee passage is just the beginning for the PRE-K Act. It order to become law, it would need to pass on the House floor, it would need to pass the Senate, and the President would need to sign the legislation. That’s a lot of steps–particularly in an election year, when it’s harder to move legislation; when it’s not attached to a larger vehicle, such as NCLB reauthorization; and when it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll see a Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill pass this fall. Further, the PRE-K Act doesn’t currently have a companion bill in the Senate, although Senators Hillary Clinton and Kit Bond have introduced the Ready to Learn Act, and Senator Robert Casey has introduced the Prepare All Kids Act, both of which also support similar pre-k investments in partnership with states. That’s a lot of obstacles. But it’s still exciting to see pre-k legislation moving in Congress, which has too long left states to do the heavy lifting on improving pre-k, with little federal help.