Notes from the Field
Submitted by Frank Murphy, April 7, 2011
Children in Pennsylvania have benefitted from better access to quality early childhood education since the mid 1990s. Full day Kindergarten programs became the norm in Philadelphia during the administration of David Hornbeck. In the years since, other districts throughout the state have followed suit. In the current school year, local Pennsylvania school districts are providing instructional services to 62,000 kindergarten students, thanks to the availability of a state accountability block grant. Funds from this source also made it possible to provide pre-K instructional services to an additional 3,500 children.
The push to adequately fund early childhood education programs in Pennsylvania has deservedly received much attention from local educational activists and Governor Rendell during his term in office. This effort was rooted in the knowledge that high quality preschool programs can lead to greater school success for the children who attend them. Research has indicated that children who have been enrolled in such programs demonstrate significant gains in their language, literacy, and mathematical development. The long-term economic benefits to the children who attend high quality early childhood programs are substantial.
Newly elected Governor Corbett wants to change all that, as indicated in his recent proposal to significantly reduce aid to local districts. In addition to a 10% cut to the basic funding formula, he also plans to eliminate the block grant that has funded many full day kindergarten classes in the state. Districts are facing the grim possibility of addressing budget shortfalls by reducing kindergarten services to half-day programs or eliminating them altogether. In Philadelphia, Arlene Ackerman is proposing that kindergarten programs in all non-empowerment schools be shortened to half-day programs. This development represents a giant step backward for the children of our city.
For the last eight years, the test scores in our state have steadily increased. For the children in the School District of Philadelphia, these increases have been significant.
It is highly probable that one of the most significant factors that have contributed to these gains is the increase in the number of children who have been enrolled in high quality early childhood instructional programs. In Philadelphia, David Hornbeck’s decision to make all kindergartens classes full day may well be one of the least credited factors that has led to the multiple years of achievement growth on the part of our children.
Maintaining full day kindergarten programs in every school should be a priority for school leaders across the state. They need to fight to restore the block grant that has provided the funding for 62,000 children to attend full day kindergarten classes and avoid making cuts to their local early childhood programs.
This is a choice that Dr. Ackerman can and should make in Philadelphia. But this is not what she has elected to do. Instead, she is proposing to eliminate full day kindergarten in all non-empowerment schools and increase funding for her Promise Academies project. The projected cost of $30 million dollars to support the expansion of Promise Academies in the 2011-12 school year could not only fund full day Kindergarten programs, but also cover the cost of athletic and gifted and talented programs in all district schools.
Dr. Ackerman is calling upon all parents to join her in fighting state budget cuts. Yet she has made it clear that she is prepared to sacrifice district-wide programs in order to protect her narrow reform agenda. What kind of message does this communicate to the Governor and state legislatures? Her insistence on choosing to eliminate research-proven early childhood programs in order to continue to expand experimental unproven school “turn-around” strategies is misguided. It is the moral obligation of our district leader to not only work to turn around chronically low performing schools but also to do no harm to every other school.
What can you do to assist our public schools? First, you can protest the state education cuts by contacting key state legislators. You can also join fellow citizens in voicing your concerns to our elected officials about the continued availability of high quality early childhood instructional programs to children across our state.
Locally, you can attend one of the school district’s community budget meetings in order to advocate for full day Kindergarten programs and to insist that the needs of all schools are addressed in the most fair and equal manner possible when reducing our school district’s budget.