Today’s Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania is focusing national media attention on the state, so we at Early Ed Watch thought we’d use the occasion to look at what’s happening with early education in Pennsylvania—actually, quite a lot! Pennsylvania currently supports several different initiatives that seek to improve early education quality and access in the state:
- The 2007-08 Pennsylvania budget provided $75 million to launch Pre-K Counts, a statewide pre-k initiative that supplements and coordinates existing early education programs in the state to provide pre-k for nearly 11,000 three- and four-year-olds.
- The Accountability Block Grant, funded at $275 million in the 2007-08 budget, provides school districts with funding they can use to implement proven practices that improve student achievement—75 percent of funding goes to support early education programs, including pre-k, full-day kindergarten, and reduced class size in the early elementary grades.
- Pennsylvania invests $40 million a year to supplement federal Head Start funding and expand the number of children served in Head Start programs.
- School districts that choose to offer pre-kindergarten to four-year-olds can receive partial funding for these programs through the state school funding formula.
- Pennsylvania’s Keystone Stars is regarded as a model quality rating system for early childhood care and education providers. Participating providers receive between one and four stars depending on the quality standards they meet, and a tiered state childcare subsidy system provides increased reimbursements for providers that have more stars.
Yet despite the variety of initiatives in place, Pennsylvania’s public pre-k investments serve fewer than 25,000 of its 289,000 three- and four-year-olds. The state’s doing slightly better when it comes to full-day kindergarten, serving more than 63,000 children—more than half again as many as in 2002—in full-day kindergarten programs. But that still puts Pennsylvania well below the national average of 65 percent of kindergarteners enrolled in full-day programs. In other words, despite its progress, this is a state that has some work to do on early education.
Pennsylvania’s taken a slightly different approach on early education than many other states. Rather than focus on universal pre-k for four-year-olds, as some other states have done, Pennsylvania first focused on improving childcare quality from birth on, creating the Keystone Stars program in 2002 to rate and help improve the quality of early education and childcare providers. Keystone Stars ratings, and the professional development policies and resources that have been created to accompany them, help support the state’s more recent efforts to expand pre-k access. For example, community-based childcare providers who want to be part of Pre-K Counts must meet receive at least two Keystone Stars.
At the same time, Pennsylvania’s efforts to strengthen accountability in the K-12 public education system have supported increased investments in early education by school districts. The Accountability Block Grant provides school districts with resources to improve student achievement and meet NCLB goals. School Districts devote three-quarters of this funding to improve PK-3 education.
Pennsylvania’s current efforts to improve pre-k access and quality through Pre-K Counts builds on both Keystone Stars and the K-12 school reform activities that were already in place and supporting early education in the state. The challenge facing the state now is to use Pre-K Counts to expand and better integrate these efforts so that all Pennsylvania children receive a seamless, high-quality early education experience from age three (or younger) through early elementary school.
Pennsylvania’s approach to early education over the past several years—seeking to improve the quality of early learning and care from birth through school entry—more closely resembles Senator Obama’s approach to early education than it does Senator Clinton’s. But the state’s new investments in expanding pre-k access look more like Senator Clinton’s universal pre-k proposals. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, championed new Pre-K Counts investments in the 2007 legislative session. Senator Bob Casey, who has endorsed Obama, introduced federal pre-k legislation similar to a bill Clinton sponsored.
Ultimately, both Senators Clinton and Obama have proposed early education investments that would bolster Pennsylvania’s early education efforts. Senator Clinton’s universal pre-k proposal could provide the funding the state needs to catch up on pre-k access and quality. Senator Obama’s proposed Early Learning Challenge Grants could help the state integrate different early education and care programs supported by childcare funding, Head Start, and the Education Accountability Block Grant, in order to build a more seamless early education and care system. Moving forward in improving early education quality, access, and alignment in states like Pennsylvania will require a combination of state and federal leadership.
