ATLANTA – Southern Regional Education Board states continue to lead the nation in the overall quality of publicly funded prekindergarten programs for 4-year-olds, a national report released today shows.
The respected National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University released The State of Preschool 2007, which shows that most of the nation’s 4-year-olds still do not have access to state-funded prekindergarten.
The report ranks all 50 states on the percentage of children served and spending per child. It also compares the number of quality standards each state meets. The survey found that enrollment, quality and state spending increased nationally in the 2006-2007 school year.
Oklahoma rated first nationally for providing access to state-funded prekindergarten classes, serving 68 percent of the state’s 4-year-olds. Seven of the top 10 states in this category are SREB states: Florida was second, Georgia third, West Virginia fourth, Texas fifth, South Carolina seventh and Maryland 10th.
Tennessee had the nation’s largest enrollment increase in state-funded prekindergarten last year, with 52 percent. Florida saw a 17 percent increase, the report says.
Three states served more than half of their 4-year-olds: Oklahoma (68 percent), Florida (58 percent) and Georgia (53 percent). When the federal Head Start program is included, enrollment of 4-year-olds hit 90 percent in Oklahoma, 71 percent in Florida and 65 percent in Georgia. For the first time, 10 states in the nation served more than one-third of their 4-year-olds in state pre-K programs.
Eight SREB states ranked above the national average in state spending per student on prekindergarten. Delaware ranked fifth, Louisiana eighth, Alabama ninth and North Carolina 10th.
Alabama and North Carolina shared the top ranking for overall quality of their pre-K programs, meeting all 10 of NIEER’s standards. Arkansas and Oklahoma were two of only four states nationally that met nine of the 10 quality standards. Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina met at least eight of the 10 standards. Florida and Texas rated relatively low for the quality of their programs, each meeting four of the 10 standards.
The quality standards include a comprehensive curriculum, class size and staff-to-student-ratio requirements, mandatory teacher and staff credentials, and health and nutrition services.
Despite Alabama’s high-quality program, the state served fewer than 2 percent of the state’s 4-year-olds — fewer than 1,100 children statewide. Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee also had participation rates of lower than 20 percent.
Mississippi remained the SREB region’s only state without a state-funded prekindergarten program, one of 11 states without a program nationwide. Thirty-six percent of the state’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in Head Start.
Arkansas and Kentucky rated fourth and fifth nationally for access to prekindergarten for 3-year-olds.
SREB’s Challenge to Lead Goals for Education, approved by a commission of the region’s leaders in 2002, call for states to ensure that "all children are ready for the first grade."
A recent SREB report showed that states need to take further action to ensure that all children are ready for school. Ready to Start: Ensuring High-Quality Prekindergarten in SREB States, available at www.sreb.org, shows that the majority of all 4-year-olds attending prekindergarten in the United States last year were enrolled in the SREB region, and nearly all SREB states now offer sufficient access to prekindergarten for children from families with annual incomes at or below the federal poverty line.
The challenge for state leaders is to spend prekindergarten funds wisely to serve more children and meet the needs of these diverse groups, while ensuring that programs meet high standards of quality, the SREB report said. States also may need to look at making prekindergarten available to more 3-year-olds as funds become available, it said.
"Research makes clear that high-quality prekindergarten for all children is worth the investment," SREB Vice President for Education Policies Joan Lord said. "Children who are not prepared for school are the ones most likely to drop out, to find only low-paying jobs, to become unemployed and to face a lifetime of problems.
"SREB states have opened up access to pre-K for many of the region’s 4-year-olds, and for the most part, state programs are meeting high standards of quality," Lord continued. "States need to ensure that in every case, strong access to pre-K programs is coupled with high quality for all children."
Few states measure how well prekindergarten programs prepare children for school, the SREB report also showed. Sustainable funding for prekindergarten continues to be a challenge in some SREB states. To make further improvements, SREB calls for state leaders to focus on per student spending for prekindergarten, better coordination of statewide programs for young children, more teacher training and other actions, including the creation of statewide assessments of children’s readiness for school.
Contact SREB Communications for more information about your state’s prekindergarten programs or for reaction to the NIEER report.
SREB, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, advises state education leaders on ways to improve education. SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Each is represented by its governor and four gubernatorial appointees.
