What I get to do with my job...

In the Clarion Ledger & Meridian Star... A column I made "local" by adding information as it relates to Mississippi - drafted by the American Forum.

State should fund ‘PK-3’By becky trask / guest columnist
JACKSON — Mississippi does not fully fund K-12 education, nor do we have a comprehensive statewide prekindergarten program. Surely, this is not the best we can offer.

Private schools, nonprofit organizations and churches, and for-profit corporations bear the burden of preparing our children for enrollment in kindergarten and first grade. Parents bear the cost of most prekindergarten programs, which can be more expensive than a college education. In the end, children bear the cost of being ill-prepared for school.

We can begin to fix this by offering quality prekindergarten programming and mandatory kindergarten to all children. But for children to get the most out of growing public investments in early learning, we must align standards, curriculum and assessment from prekindergarten through the early elementary grades. That’s the PK-3 approach.

Research shows that investing in early education programs has a potential return rate of 16 percent by reducing costly grade retention, special-education placements, teen birthrates, crime and incarceration. Thirty-nine states now pay for all or many 3- and 4-year-olds to receive prekindergarten education. Why can’t we?

With 28 percent of our children currently living below the poverty level, we continue to put our state’s future at risk when we do not properly prepare our youngest and most vulnerable children for education success. Simply put, too many of our state’s children do not receive adequate early care and education. The resulting truth is that children across the state are showing up for kindergarten ill-prepared for the task ahead of them.

PK-3 begins with voluntary, full-day prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-old children. Compulsory schooling begins in kindergarten with a curriculum that builds on prekindergarten experiences. These experiences include early literacy and numeracy learning, the development of social skills and self-discipline.

Research supports the PK-3 approach. A study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association tracked 1,500 disadvantaged minority children in Chicago for 16 years. About two-thirds of the children participated in a comprehensive preschool program where standards, curriculum and assessment were aligned with kindergarten through third grade. Called the Child-Parent Centers, these programs were part of the Chicago Public School system. The study found that CPC participants were almost 30 percent more likely to complete high school than a comparison group of equally disadvantaged children. Forty percent fewer CPC participants were held back in school or placed in special education, and CPC participants had 41 percent fewer arrests for violent crime. The study shows that an established government-funded and administered program can generate long-lasting results and benefits such as higher incomes and better citizenship.

The CPC program demonstrates how the PK-3 approach works to improve the literacy and math skills of all children, especially English-language learners and low-income children. The program strengthens children’s social skills and motivation to help them to succeed, reduces the need for special-education services, and reduces the “fade out” effects often found in prekindergarten-only programs.

The PK-3 approach encourages principals to build strong teams of qualified teachers. Teachers are required to have the qualifications, knowledge and skills to teach all grades from prekindergarten through third grade.

Teachers will thoroughly understand the development of the curriculum across grade levels and ages. This enables parents to build long-term relationships with these important adults in their children’s lives. To help qualified teachers make a career of early education, we must pay them what we pay all other elementary schoolteachers.

PK-3 also makes good economic sense. Schools that use the PK-3 approach are more likely to see all children reach fourth grade equipped with the skills needed to learn at a higher level and narrow the achievement gap between groups of children, and meet federal requirements under the No Child Left Behind law. They also improve every child’s chance of graduating high school and becoming productive members of their communities.

PK-3 stimulates the coordination of funding streams and makes more efficient use of state resources for early and elementary education. PK-3 encourages efficiency because it supports the coordination and alignment of prekindergarten with elementary school classes through third grade to ensure a consistent, quality education. Doing so will maximize our children’s potential.

While once thought to be a luxury, we now know that early education is very important for children, families and communities. It’s time to change the way our education system works from the bottom up. We can do this by investing in PK-3 for all our youngest children.

Becky Trask is coordinator of Congregations for Children at the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church.