The concept of universal prekindergarten is gaining momentum

Development of a new voluntary preK program for all 3 and 4-year-olds is one of NSBA’s top advocacy priorities. “NSBA believes publicly funded preschool programs can help raise student achievement by providing a solid foundation on which many children can build,” states a policy brief issued by NSBA in March.

“Disparities show up long before children show up at school,” said Isabel Sawhill, senior fellow and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution. “The gaps that start early tend to persist throughout school years.”

While Head Start is generally seen as effective in helping to narrow the playing field for children entering kindergarten, it is restricted to low-income children.

Advocates for universal preK generally want to supplement, not replace, Head Start. Sawhill notes that Head Start “doesn’t start early enough, it doesn’t serve enough children, and there is a wide disparity in quality among Head Start centers.”

Many states already are addressing the need for preK. All but nine states have preK programs, but the quality of programs varies widely, and only Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma offer preK to every 4-year-old.

Pre-K Now, an advocacy group with most of its funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, reports that 29 governors proposed to increase funding for preK this year. Collectively, these proposals would raise state funding for preK by $800 million.

The Success by 10 program, proposed by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, would target the most disadvantaged children, begin serving children shortly after birth, and insist on high-quality programs. It is modeled by the successful Abecedarian program, developed in North Carolina in the 1960s and 1970s.

A criticism of early childhood education is that the positive results in raising IQs tend to fade after a few years, Sawhill said. Success by 10 would maintain children’s early gains by continuing through the first few years of elementary school.

Sawhill said the goal is to ensure that children reach the fourth grade capable of meeting grade-level expectations in reading and math. She cites the “Success for All” reading program as a good example of an effective approach in the elementary grades.

During the transition phase, the Success by 10 program would cost $6 billion a year, Sawhill said, and would rise to $40 billion a year when fully implemented.

The Education Sector, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, is also proposing a large-scale, high-quality preschool program, focusing first on low-income 4-year-olds, then expanding to include 3-year-olds, then 4-year-olds from families of all income levels, said Sara Mead, a senior policy analyst.

Like other proposals, the Education Sector wants the federal funds to be matched with state grants, stringent quality standards, and alignment with K-12 schooling.

Mead estimates the program would cost $18.4 billion a year, with $14.7 billion in federal funding, the rest from state funds. This level of funding would serve 56 percent of the nation’s eligible 4-year-olds -- 2.2 million children -- at an estimated cost of $8,287 per child, the current average per-pupil cost for K-12 education.

The New America Foundation proposes a “2020 Early Education Grant” program, using a mix of federal and state funds to expand access to high-quality preK and establish PreK-16 coordinating councils that would develop teacher and curricular standards for preschool aligned with the elementary grades.

The funding under this plan would initially be restricted to at-risk children and later expand to all children, and all preK classrooms would be required to have a lead teacher with credentials as a “highly qualified early educator.”

Of all the presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is the only one so far to announce a detailed proposal for universal prekindergarten.

Clinton’s plan would provide grants to help states establish, voluntary preK programs for every 4-year-old. She proposes an initial annual investment of $5 billion, increasing to $10 billion a year in five years. States would have to match their federal grants on a one-to-one basis.

The programs would be free to children from low-income or limited-English households, and preK programs would be “as individualized as possible,” said campaign aide Jack Sullivan, as long they meet health and safety requirements.

But, he said, all programs would have to meet certain benchmarks: Teachers would have to have a bachelor’s degree and some training in early childhood education. The curriculum must be age-appropriate and high quality, and there would have to be a high teacher-to-student ratio.

NSBA’s proposal calls for a new federal grant program to provide a developmentally appropriate education for all 3 and 4-year-olds whose parents want to participate. Such programs should be aligned with K-12 academic content standards, and preK providers should be required to collaborate with local school districts.

A key element of the NSBA proposal is the need for a new dedicated funding stream.

Some of the other proposals would rely on funding from existing programs. The New America Foundation, for example, calls for the use of Title V block grants, and Success by 10 would use Title I funding.

NSBA would oppose any plan to divert money from existing K-12 education programs to fund preK. While preK is critically needed, NSBA believes, it would not benefit children if elementary and secondary education funds were redirected to pay for it.

NSBA also would oppose any preK program that would be designed to create or set the stage for a voucher system for private schools.

While a new universal preK program would be expensive, proponents believe the benefits would far outweigh the costs.

A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute found that a preK program targeted to disadvantaged children would pay for itself in just six years.

The savings -- from less government spending on such areas as educational remediation and law enforcement, increased compensation to individuals, and less crime -- would total more than $315 billion in 2050. A universal preK program would save more than $779 billion in 2050.

But, politicians might not want to wait that long to see the results, Sawhill noted.

The high initial cost is just one obstacle to universal preK. Another is demographics, the Education Sector points out. Voters with young children are far numbered by voters without them -- and who balk at using public funds to finance preschool for parents who could afford to pay for it themselves.

That was one of the major reasons voters in California defeated a universal preK initiative a year ago -- and that’s why most preK advocates want to start with serving poor children first.

The high cost also means it makes sense to use federal dollars to leverage state funding, Sawhill said.