North Carolina Pre-k Program Faces Cuts

Earlier this week we reported on the National Institute for Early Education Research’s 2008 State of Preschool Yearbook, which found that states made significant progress in improving pre-k quality and access last year. We also noted that pre-k advocates are very concerned that the current budget crises in the states could derail progress on early education that has been made over the past few years.

Recent developments in North Carolina provide a case in point. The state legislature is considering two bills that would seriously damage North Carolina’s “More at Four” state pre-k program. The first of these bills, in the House, would merge More at Four with Smart Start, a long-standing program that provides funding to county-level partnerships to improve child care and health services for children from birth through five. This move would undermine More at Four’s standards and high-quality, as well as efforts to align More at Four pre-k programming with early elementary programs in the state’s public schools.

A more serious concern, however, is a budget bill, passed by the Senate yesterday, that would cut $40 million from More at Four’s funding and transfer its administration from the state Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services. In doing so, the bill would essentially turn More at Four from a pre-k program into a child care program, requiring children participating in the program to meet the same eligibility requirements (such as income cut-offs and hours worked by their parents) as in state-subsidized child care programs. The legislation specifically instructs the agencies to preserve slots by reducing the rate at which providers are paid to serve children–a move almost certain to lower quality.

That’s especially disappointing because North Carolina’s More at Four program is one of only two state pre-k programs in the country that meet all ten state program quality standards identified by the National Institute for Early Education Research. And the move from the Department of Education to Health and Human Services would deal a serious blow to the state’s efforts to make More at Four part of a high-quality, aligned system of preK-3rd education.

Legislators say they are cutting More at Four in an effort to balance the state’s budget in a time of fiscal crisis, although some observers also chalk the cuts up to political and ideological opposition to the program, which was established by former Gov. Mike Easley. In the long run, however, these cuts may be pennywise and pound foolish. Research shows that high-quality early education programs can deliver substantial benefits and taxpayers savings over the lives of participating youngsters. Yet research is equally clear that programs’ ability to deliver such results is highly dependent on quality. By cutting quality in the More at Four program, the North Carolina legislature could be jeopardizing its remaining investments in the program. We hope that the North Carolina House, which must also pass the budget legislation, and Governor. Perdue will have more sense than the Senate and find a way to preserve the character, quality, and investment in the state’s More at Four program.