Indiana’s pre-K opportunity
What should a state-funded preschool program look like? Some expert views:

W. Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research: The best advice I have is to begin with high standards and adequate funding based on the school funding formula for K-12. Keep the regulations to a minimum but insist on paying teachers just as well as in K-12, the same level of teacher qualifications, and reasonable class sizes (no more than 20 children with an assistant, preferably no more than 15 children if they are all disadvantaged). Include a provision for parental choice among private and public providers but do not take school districts out of the picture.

Give school districts the responsibility for identifying eligible providers that meet state standards for the pool from which parents can select; providing support to teachers in all providers through coaching on teaching improvement, and support teams for assisting them with children with special needs, behavior problems and languages other than English (without this, such children will be excluded entirely or dumped on the public schools); measuring the quality of teaching and child outcomes with authority to fire from the eligible pool any programs that remain low performers two or three years after being notified they are poor performers.

Madeleine Baker, director of the Early Childhood Alliance: Paths to Quality Level 4 preschool programs have:

Intentionally designed learning environment, with focus on helping children get ready for kindergarten.

•Trained, credentialed and experienced teaching staff.

•Parents involved in their children’s early learning opportunities; and for those parents who have limited parenting experience and/or have had no positive role models, the preschool programs can provide resources that will help them.

•Curriculum that focuses on school-readiness goals.

•In some situations, programs that work in conjunction with community schools and their staff to ensure school readiness is aligned with what’s expected in kindergarten.

Terry Spradlin, education policy director for the Center for Education and Evaluation Policy at IU-Bloomington:

The state needs to make sure programs meet standards for staff-child ratio and class size. There should be some screening of programs and application process. Families would have a lot of trust in starting a child in the school they will eventually attend – they would prefer fewer transitions.

Hopefully, the legislature wouldn’t restrict it to benefit the private schools. Public districts have been providing preschool programs for years.

It’s well-documented what a quality program looks like – we have early childhood education standards.

We can turn to other states for guidance. If there are 40 states with preschool programs, we can look to best practices. There’s a lot of information out there on how to do it right.
Is Indiana ready for state-sponsored pre-kindergarten programs?

That’s precisely the question Indiana University education experts asked in a policy brief more than six years ago. The answer, of course, was “no” – Indiana today remains one of just 11 states that spends no money on preschool. Aside from Mississippi and New Hampshire, most are sparsely populated western states.

IU’s Center for Evaluation & Education Policy laid out a strong case for investment in early learning in its 2006 study. It recommended the state re-establish the Early Learning and School Readiness Commission eliminated by Gov. Mitch Daniels. It also advised setting goals for a publicly funded program, examining alternatives to build on existing early learning efforts, identifying a funding source and choosing a lead agency to implement it.

But without a supportive governor, effective champions in the General Assembly or even Statehouse consensus on the value of preschool, education policy veered from the evidence-based case for early learning to unproven approaches: Increased emphasis on standardized testing, private-school vouchers; charter school expansion; punitive school letter grades.

The calculus changed on Election Day, however, and the state’s youngest residents finally could be in line to enjoy sound education benefits long available elsewhere. Indiana’s preschool opportunity finally is in reach.
© 2024, www.journalgazette.net