We don’t need these things in the Century of Texas.
Just how important is full-day pre-kindergarten for the state’s youngest and most disadvantaged kids? Is it more important than after-school tutoring? Than canceling music and art classes? As they brace for a proposed $10 billion less in state funding, that’s one decision that public schools will have to make.
“It’s choosing between bad and worse and bad and bad,” says Daniel King, the superintendent of the Rio Grande Valley’s Pharr-San Juan-Alamo district, “It’s definitely not a good day when we are sitting around talking about whether class size going up could help salvage all-day pre-K, or vice-versa.”
The Texas Education Agency‘s $1.3 billion in discretionary grants, which fund a variety of special initiatives from full-day pre-K to teacher incentives to high school completion efforts, are among the state programs sent to the guillotine in the introductory budget proposals from both the House and the Senate. The former slashes all funding for the grants, while the latter reduces the total amount to $400 million to be spread across all of the agency’s competitive grant programs. The grants currently allow districts to extend the state’s standard half-day pre-K to a full-day program at a cost of about $200 million per biennium. Last year the program funded full-time pre-K for approximately 101,000 children of the more than 190,000 enrolled in state-funded pre-K.
Advocates argue that pre-K, where students learn fundamentals like counting, the alphabet, sharing and taking turns, makes kids less likely to drop out, repeat grades and need remedial classes as they move through the education system. Developing these skills early, says Libby Doggett, who oversees the Pew Center on the States pre-K advocacy efforts, can result in up to $7 return for every dollar the state invests in pre-K programs. (In Texas, a 2006 study from Texas A&M University showed at least a $3.50 yield on every dollar invested.) She says any cuts to funding for pre-K will hurt the state for “years to come” in increased costs for parents who must alter work schedules to take care of their children during the day, schools that must deal with unprepared students and communities that have to tackle higher dropout rates.
“There’s no educational program that has a better basis in research and a better return in investment,” Doggett says. “Smart states will get out ahead, smart legislators will make sure the money is there, because it really will make the rest of the school system better.”
I have no idea what the effect of this will be. Neither, I daresay, do the legislators who are willing to vote for it, though I’m sure they’ll all downplay it if pressed. We know there are benefits to pre-K – there are likely benefits we don’t really notice as well, because they’re not tied up in test scores – and we know there will be costs to cutting pre-K. But who cares about future costs if we can save a few bucks now?
Hey, the Republicans here want to kill 4-year Kindergarten here in WI as well. Then they’ll start on the vouchers again, probably. They don’t care, even with proven benefits. They want all public education ended, and it’s easy to start with the new, semi-controversial stuff.
To “wich” – Your statement that republicans want to do away with public education is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. If you will do a little historical research, you will find that throughout the educational hlstory of the US republicans have been the leaders in starting and supporting public education at ALL levels. Are there republicans and democrats in the US who want to do away with public education? Absolutely! However, members of both parties also think that public education is the ONLY way to insure that this nation succeeds in the future – a public education rich in the 4 R’s, the arts, physical education, technology, and in vocational classes for those students who do not want to go to college. Give us all a break and make your comments a bit more realistic.
I think that the legislature needs to re-think cutting such a vital program. My mother was a first grade teacher in Houston ISD for more than 30 years. She recalls when there was no kindergarden programs. She said that the students she received did not know how to keep their hands to themselves or walk in a straight line which are social skills learned in Pre-K and kindergarden classes. Pre-K and Headstart also helps kids learn to count, their alphabets, their addresses, and how to write their names. With testing being such a high-stakes industry, we need to keep the basics in place to help to prepare them for first grade (their first exposure to any type of basic skills test) and beyond.
What is accurate, Jerden, is that Texas Republicans want to abolish pre-K….and mandatory kindergarten.
It’s in the state party platform…page 12.
Jerden–that was the republican party of old that saw a well educated society as the wall against communism and the promotion of the US. That party no longer exsist. Today it is the party fermenting seccession of states, promotion of the interest of the rich at the expense of everyone else. The middle class is “public enemy #1”. It is dominated by bigots, radical religious government hating John Birchers, and the “everyman for himself ” crowd. Heck todays Republicans make RMN look good.
Let me start off by stating that I am hispanic, so in no way, shape, or form is my comment racial. What is making us legal US citizens and legal permanent residents angry is that they want to make budget cuts and one way is by doing away with Pre-K or other programs because of the education system’s financial problems; but no where do they mention one perfect solution to a major problem we have. There are many many Mexican children attending our schools in Texas who either don’t have proper documents to enter the US or they have a proper Mexican Visa to visit the US but not to work or attend schools in the US yet they have been allowed to enroll in our schools without any responsibility of paying school taxes or tuitions (one major reason our education system in Texas is going downhill). Another reason is there are also thousands of US citizens also living outside the US but attending schools in Texas without the responsibility of paying shcool taxes because they don’t reside in Texas. There is also thousands of students with Lawful Permanent Residents status that are residing in Mexico also attending our schools without the responsibility of paying school or city taxes but enjoying the benefits of attending our public schools. Meanwhile the children of those of us who are US Citizens, Legal Permanent Residents, and are pumping hard earned money into our Education System by paying our taxes are having to lose out on an important year of school (Pre-K) which has been proven to better prepare our children better for the rest of their school years and decreases the drop out rate. There was one year when my older children began the school year with only copies of text books for the first few months of the year because of budget problems, yet I witnessed first hand in another school district where many of the students I mentioned attend had all books provided from the begining of the school year and were even provided public transportation picking them up at the Bridge on the US side. It is not like our schools aren’t aware of this, they just simply decide to look the other way and not do anything about it.
One way to fix this major financial problem would be to start making these people pay full tuition if they are not residing in the US or at the very least pay the same tax amount as those of US living here legally. Also making sure these students have documents or proper documents to be attending schools in the US. Before or instead of cutting into programs our children do benefit from they should take my suggestions and act on them and I guarrantee this problem would be greatly improved.
Angry,
1. The state is constitutionally required to provide public education to all children, including those of undocumented immigrants. It’s settled law. The only outcome of your suggestion would be a lawsuit, which the state would lose.
2. Rep. Rob Eissler, the chair of the Public Ed committee, has stated that he opposes legislation like the bill Debbie Riddle has filed to force school districts to collect immigration and residency status of students because it would cost a lot of money, which as you know we don’t have.
3. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we are talking about children here. What have they done wrong, and what is the policy goal of not educating them?
“3. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we are talking about children here. What have they done wrong, and what is the policy goal of not educating them?”
It appears to me that the object of their mission is to put pressure on undocumented immigrants to self-deport, including those who have citizen children.
@Angry
I’m sure that all of your relatives waltzed across that bridge or swam across the water with all of their migratory documents in hand. You state that you’re not a racist…ok maybe not…however, you do sound like a bigot. You sound very hateful towards kids and that is really sad!!
Plyler v. Doe guaranteed the right of an education to any child who showed up at the school.
The Court reasoned that illegal aliens and their children, though not citizens of the United States or Texas, are people “in any ordinary sense of the term” and, therefore, are afforded Fourteenth Amendment protections. Since the state law severely disadvantaged the children of illegal aliens, by denying them the right to an education, and because Texas could not prove that the regulation was needed to serve a “compelling state interest,” the Court struck down the law.