3/29/2006
HALTER VOWS TO MAKE PRE-KINDERGARTENUNIVERSAL FOR ARKANSAS
All Parents Would Have Access to Pre-K Schooling for their Children
Little Rock – Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter today released his plan to “provide universal access to affordable pre-kindergarten” and to “bridge the education gap” while “ensuring all parents have access to the pre-schooling needed to jump-start their children’s education.”
Halter’s plan, Arkansas’ Best Chance – Universal Pre-Kindergarten (ABC-UPK), builds upon the state’s highly-successful current program, Arkansas Better Chance, to include all 3- and 4-year olds from low-income families. ABC-UPK also makes pre-kindergarten more affordable for working-parents with 4-year-old children.
“All Arkansas children, especially those from working families and those who live in poverty, deserve to enter kindergarten with the skills needed for successful continued learning,” said Halter. “Under my plan, Arkansas would join only a few other states in the nation to offer universal access to pre-kindergarten.”
“Universal pre-kindergarten is a sound investment in our children and for our state’s future,” Halter added. “If we improve our children’s life chances with a better education, our state will have fewer welfare enrollees, less crime and teen pregnancy and a more educated and skilled workforce which will help attract new and better-paying jobs to our state.”
“Universal Pre-Kindergarten will save our state money by reducing the amount of remedial and special education services needed,” added Halter. “We’ll also save money in health care costs while increasing our tax revenue from better-educated children who go on to better paying jobs.”
Presently, Oklahoma and Georgia offer what has been viewed by experts as widely successful universal Pre-K programs. Numerous studies, such as the High/Scope Perry Preschool and Carolina Abecedarian projects, demonstrated that Pre-K children had higher academic achievement, lower special education enrollment, lower dropout and juvenile delinquency rates, and earned higher incomes than a comparison control group. A study of Oklahoma’s universal Pre-K program reflected significant gains for children, especially among African-American and disadvantaged students.
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ARKANSAS’ BEST CHANCE
Universal Pre-K in Arkansas (ABC-UPK)
A high-quality education is critical to give Arkansan children a fair shot in life and to enable our state to compete in the competitive global economy. But our state and our parents’ ability to provide children with a jump-start to higher levels of education suffers: some children begin their education from a disadvantaged position, already far from being in a position to learn. Other children simply have no access to pre-kindergarten because it is beyond the means of their working parents.
Goal: Establish Universal Pre-Kindergarten in Arkansas.Introduction
High-quality pre-kindergarten will ensure that children are prepared to succeed in school and help them to do better later in life, too. Consider:
►Programs like the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project in Michigan, the Abecedarian Preschool Project in North Carolina, and Oklahoma’s Universal Pre-kindergarten program show that high-quality, educational early childhood education programs can help children do better in school. These programs were particularly effective for disadvantaged children and helped to close achievement gaps.
► High-quality preschool programs also help children earn higher wages as adults and reduce the likelihood that they will get involved in crime or become teenage parents.
►A recent pre-kindergarten study sponsored by Entergy demonstrated that for every $1 spent on pre-k, society would realize a benefit of $7 to $9 from reduced crime, additional tax revenue as well as additional saving from health care and welfare costs realized from more employed people in better-paying, higher-wage jobs.
Bill Halter’s Universal Pre-K Plan
Bill Halter’s Arkansas Best Chance - Universal Pre-Kindergarten (ABC-UPK) plan will:
1. Expand pre-kindergarten funding by $50 million a year. The Halter Administration will build on Arkansas Better Chance and make Arkansas a national leader in early childhood education.
Arkansans can be proud that our state has invested in a high-quality preschool program for disadvantaged students. The Arkansas Better Choice (ABC) program, created in 1991, offers high-quality pre-kindergarten to children from low-income families. Since 2003 the legislature has dramatically expanded ABC, but it still offers only enough preschool places for half the eligible children—allowing too many children too fall behind.
2. Provide high-quality pre-kindergarten opportunities for all 3- and 4-year olds from low-income families.Arkansas Better Chance provides high-quality, free pre-kindergarten to low-income 3- and 4-year olds, but current funding levels allow to it serve less than half of the eligible children. Bill Halter’s plan will expand pre-kindergarten programs to serve all low-income 3- and 4-year olds—the children who most benefit from high-quality preschool—for the parents who choose these programs for their children.
3. Make high-quality pre-kindergarten affordable for more working parents. Under the Halter plan, all Arkansan families will be able to take advantage of more affordable access to pre-kindergarten schooling.
Low-income children aren’t the only ones who benefit from high-quality preschool. As we raise academic standards for children in our elementary and secondary schools, all children can benefit from high-quality pre-kindergarten that gets them ready to learn to high standards. In addition, many working and middle class families in Arkansas struggle to find and pay for safe, nurturing childcare for their children while they are at work. Expanding pre-kindergarten opportunities, and making them more affordable for working and middle class families, can help them balance family and work while making ends meet.
Halter’s ABC-UPK plan will allow all Arkansas 4-year-olds to participate in pre-kindergarten if their parents want it, by allowing families to opt-in and pay an affordable, sliding-scale fee based on family income. Arkansas Better Chance currently allows families making up to 250 percent of the poverty line to participate in the program under a sliding fee-scale, based on family income. The ABC-UPK plan will expand the number of families who can participate in this program and make the sliding fee much more affordable for families with moderate incomes, while also maintaining parents’ responsibility and control over their children’s education.
4. Maintain high quality standards for pre-kindergarten.
Arkansas Better Chance is the only state-funded pre-kindergarten program in the country to meet 10 out of 10 quality indicators evaluated by the National Institute for Early Education Research. Bill Halter’s ABC-UPK Plan will keep that Arkansas’ commitment to retaining the nation’s highest quality state pre-kindergarten program by ensuring that it provides:
· Certified pre-kindergarten teachers with a bachelor’s degree in every classroom
· High-quality, developmentally appropriate pre-kindergarten curriculum that includes early literacy, verbal, number, and social skills that help children succeed in school.
· Safe, healthy learning environments
· Small class sizes
· Parent involvement in children’s learning
· Regular assessment to ensure that pre-kindergarten programs are meeting standards and are effective
5. Fund ABC-UPK without raising taxes.
Closing
Bill Halter’s ABC-UPK plan to expand pre-kindergarten will make Arkansas a national leader in providing pre-kindergarten to all children whose families want it and in the quality of pre-kindergarten.