One fruitful aspect of elections is that they sometimes force action on issues that have been delayed, put off or forgotten. The need for Indiana to offer prekindergarten to kids in all 92 counties fits that category.
A majority of Hoosiers want such a program to become available for the state’s 4-year-olds. Residents have harbored that desire for years. An overwhelming 82 percent of people responding to the 2014 Hoosier Survey by the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University favored an expansion of the existing pre-K pilot program, which serves 1,500 low-income youngsters in five counties. The support is bipartisan, with 70 percent of Republican residents and 90 percent of Democrats supporting an expansion.
Yet, in that same year, 2014, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence stopped the state’s already-in-progress pursuit of a possible $80 million grant to fund pre-K. Ideology drove Pence’s rejection of the grant, which he called a “federal intrusion.” This summer, two years after that decision, the governor said he would again seek a federal pre-K grant. That change was wise. The small pilot program has far more demand than it has available spaces for kids, with more than 3,000 being turned away, according to an Indianapolis Star report.
Now, the debate over a pre-K expansion in Indiana has gotten a statewide spotlight in the 2016 election season. Candidates to replace Pence as governor, Republican Eric Holcomb and Democrat John Gregg, face pressure to deliver definitive, feasible plans. The candidates for superintendent of public instruction, incumbent Democrat Glenda Ritz and Republican challenger Jennifer McCormick, are detailing a broadening of the pre-K program. Ritz and McCormick defended their ideas in a formal debate last week. Voters are listening.
At this point, Gregg and Ritz seem more aggressive, pushing for universal pre-K, so that any family of the state’s 84,000 4-year-olds can enroll its child if it desires. Holcomb and McCormick want a slower development of state-funded early childhood education, targeting at low-income children. The latter approach aligns with the recommendations of a Republican-led study committee of state legislators.
Universal pre-K would provide the biggest impact, and Gregg’s plan would shift other Indiana Department of Education funds toward early childhood education, create private-public partnerships and go after those once-turned-away federal funds to pay for the estimated $150 million cost. Still, both parties are preparing to extend this life-changing schooling to the youngest Hoosiers, and that is a good thing.
This year, the bipartisan Indiana Bicentennial Commission Visioning Project reflected the obvious public support by choosing full-access, quality pre-K as a priority as the state’s third century begins.
The benefits of early exposure to schooling are well-documented. Kids attending pre-K classes not only enter elementary school more prepared and succeed academically, but later as adults are also less likely to commit crimes, and more likely to be employed and earn high wages, according to research by the National School Boards Association’s Center for Public Eduction.
Indiana residents who support expanded early childhood education should vote with those interests in mind this fall. Young Hoosiers, and the quality of life in their home state, will be better as a result.