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Week of the Young Child

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Drop in public preschoolers in Ohio is biggest in nation

By  Jennifer Smith Richards

The Columbus Dispatch Wednesday April 11, 2012

Ohio had about 18,000 fewer 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in high-quality public preschools last school year than a decade ago, the biggest decline of any state with public programs. And although the state didn't lose ground in preschool enrollment between 2010 and 2011, enrollment didn't grow, either, according to a report released yesterday. The report gives Ohio low marks in every area for its public preschool programs for poor children: funding, access to programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, and standards for high-quality programs. Consecutive years of deep funding cuts are to blame for the enrollment decline. Last year, the annual preschool report from the National Institute for Early Education Research showed that no other state had cut preschool funding more than Ohio. This year's report says that Ohio spends a little more than half per child what it did 10 years ago: $3,942 per pre-kindergarten child. Only 2 percent of the children who are eligible - they live in poverty - are enrolled in a state-funded preschool. "I don't think there's any other state that has had these kinds of fluctuations in spending or enrollment. It seems that Ohio just cannot stay on a path to provide quality preschool to a substantial portion of the population," said Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He's lead author of the report.

Article continued on the Advocacy page

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Early Childhood Education Professionals: At the Table or On the Menu

Rae Pica

Huffington Post

In the past, early childhood professionals didn't have to worry about legislation and policy. They quietly and diligently went about their work, preparing young children to read and write, to "use their words," and to take turns. They knew their work mattered; they saw it on the attentive faces, and heard it in the inquiring voices and increasing vocabularies, of the children with whom they shared their days. The policymakers, and even the rest of the education profession, ignored them, considering them little more than "babysitters." Today, they're still too often considered babysitters -- but they're no longer being ignored. Whether it's because they want to jump on the ECE bandwagon, which began rolling when brain research highlighted the significance of the early years, or because they're looking for "easy" ways to cut the budget, policymakers are now all too aware of early childhood education. (Apologies to those policymakers who honestly see the value of this profession and work to support it.) I recently had the opportunity to discuss the impact of the policymakers' spotlight with the leaders of four state affiliates of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Representing New York State, Florida, Ohio, and Texas, Kristen Kerr, Suzanne Gellens, Kimberly Tice, and Aaron Carrara told me what's happening in their states and how it's representative of what's going on at the national level.

Article continued on the Advocacy page

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"Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America’s central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.  Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education."

 To read more go to our Advocacy page

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