Tuesday, November 13, 2012

EDU-CAP: Nov 6-13 What's New in Early Education Funding

Early education may have been put on the back-burner in during this presidential race, but with President Obama’s reelection, we’ve begun to shift gears from who is proposing the best ideas for early education to how can we put these ideas into action. President Obama’s platform stressed the importance of education, from early childcare to higher education, but with the current economic climate it is essential that we come up with nuanced ways to fund early education programs, at a federal, state, and city-level. 

Obama re-elected: What four more years means for education

The Hechinger Report, a non-profit news organization focused on in-depth education journalism, commented on how education might change in the next 4 years. Promising to expand access to quality education in his victory speech last week, Obama will ensure the federal government will have a role in education, as opposed to Mitt Romney's campaign which argued education policies be a state and local school district issue. While Obama's first-term focused on teachers and principals' accountability based on students' academic performance. Jeffrey Henig, political scientist at Columbia University's Teachers College, predicts Obama's second term will seek to "improve how academic performance is measured." The Obama administration is expected to use Race to the Top, Obama's competitive grant program incentivizing 46 states to initiate education reform, as leverage for change to make a bigger impact than No Child Left Behind. There is much optimism, yet the reality of a new bipartisan approach to education, "it'll be a lot harder to make non-incremental changes in education policy."

State banking on power of Pre-K
 The Times Union reports that early learning will be pushed in the 2013 state budget. Its no surprise that it has taken this long for policy makers to see how essential early education is to the learning process of a child. Noting the return on investing in early education, Jennifer O'Connor of early learning advocacy group Winning Beginning NY said, "The whole idea is to invest in the first 5 years. Its a smart investment; its money back for communities." The State Department of Education also supports this saying, "Every dollar invested in pre-kindergarten programs saves tax payers' $7 by reducing the need for remedial and special education, as well as welfare and criminal justice services." The State department will focus the 2013 budget on recruiting more children, who qualify for free-and reduced-lunches, into universal prekindergarten. By seeking to change the law so household income can  serve as a factor for selection, it will give priority to those children. Prekindergarten programs serve 100,000 children; with increased funding, it will reduce the 120,000 list of 4-year olds in New York waiting for seats.


Manhattan Borough President Seeks Bonds to Expand Head Start



While the majority of schools in NYC hit by Sandy’s devastation two weeks ago have reopened today, about 100 schools remain closed. Naturally the first priority is to get into these schools to do necessary repairs so they can reopen once more, in hopes of returning displaced students. But before the storm hit, Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer,  who is also a mayoral candidate for next year, proposed a way to fund early education/child care, Head Start programs. Stringer is advocating for the use of social-impact bonds, also known as pay-for-success bonds, which are loans from investors to pay for a program, to expand access to Early Head Start. Education is likely to be a key issue in the mayoral race. Stringer's proposal would not cost the tax payers anything. To make the investment worthwhile, it is expected that an early education program would require $5 million to $25 million. Alicia Glen, head of Goldman Sachs's Urban Investment Group, said, "This seems like really smart policy, and a terrific way for the public and private sector to work together and solve chronic problems." 


 Scott Stringer said, "We are fooling ourselves if we think the same old approach to funding education will get us to where we want to be." That is the mentality needed if we really want to make progress in early education. There has already been dialogue around the importance of investing in early education programs and its long term benefits not only to the child's development but also to the community and economy. It took a while, but local, state, and federal departments are beginning to push for early education investment. The next step is to develop innovative, even experimental ways of funding and investing into early education and childcare programs.


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