New School District-Level Pre-K Data Reflect Drop in State Spending

In February’s State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a new proposal to expand state pre-K programs to all low- and moderate-income children across the country. The federal funds would require state matching funds, and the state and federal dollars would both be allocated to school districts to expand access to pre-K for eligible children.

In many states, though, it’s impossible even to know the answers to basic questions about pre-K. Because pre-K is often not tracked, or not tracked at the school district level, most principals can’t say how many of their incoming kindergartners attended pre-K, and many policymakers don’t know how many children in their state have access to early education.

New data released in a joint effort by the Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP) and the Early Education Initiative, both of the New America Foundation, begin to answer some of these questions. Released for the first time last fall, FEBP and Early Education Initiative staff collect and analyze state- and school district-level pre-K funding and enrollment data where available. The latest update includes information from the 2012 school year, as well as data for earlier years that states had not previously made available. Check out your state or school district in our Funding Per Child widget below:

In Texas, for example, state pre-K funding fell from $844 million in 2011 to $727 million last year. But while funding decreased substantially in some districts, it actually increased in others. Houston pre-K funding fell from more than $61 million to nearly $53 million  over the same one-year span, leading to nearly 400 fewer children in enrolled in pre-K. Meanwhile Denton School District saw increased spending of more than $700,000 and 100 more children enrolled. Even San Antonio, the city whose mayor launched the Pre-K 4 SA initiative to raise the sales tax and fund pre-K, lost $1.2 million in state funding and more than 200 state pre-K slots (though keep in mind that our figures include only state dollars, so pre-K slots funded by the sales tax increase are not reflected in these data).

FEBP is the only source of this critical information across the country and at the school district level. The FEBP website displays the information over the past five years, where available. These landmark pre-K data were first released last fall, and this year’s update includes additional information for the 2012 school year, as well as updated information for states that had not previously provided data. New America maintains the most comprehensive education funding database in the country, with information on funding, demographics, and outcomes for every state, school district, and institution of higher education in the nation.

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