The U.S. Department of Education is giving Arizona a $20 million development grant for early childhood education. That’s a very good thing. There’s little argument that getting kids in educational situations before kindergarten is valuable for their educational and social development. Even Gov. Ducey agrees:
“Research shows that a quality early childhood education experience can yield significant long-term benefits on overall development of a child.”
Yes, Ducey said that, adding, “We know that there’s a good return on investment.” And he’s aware that Arizona has one of the lowest rates of preschool enrollment in the country. But he still won’t fund it, because, well, we can’t do things that are good for children and still cut business and income taxes—let alone add more beds in our for-profit prisons—can we?
So we’ll have to leave it to the Feds to help us do what’s right for kids.
Kelley Murphy with the Children’s Action Alliance says the four-year federal grant of up to $20 million per year will be used to improve preschool services.
“This is a development grant, and it allows us to do a lot of the infrastructure work that has to be in place before we can really start expanding the number of kids that are getting into these programs,” she says. “So it is a game-changer in that sense.”
And speaking of the Feds working to improve educational opportunities, here’s a program that widens access to the internet.
President Barack Obama has announced a new program that will seek to provide roughly 275,000 low-income families living in public housing with access to affordable high-speed Internet connections, as well as technical training and digital-literacy programs.
Dubbed ConnectHome, the initiative aims to bring together private Internet service providers, public-housing agencies, and elected officials and non-profit groups. The program is the latest step in the President’s ConnectED broadband-infrastructure effort. It comes as leaders from the Federal Communications Commission, school-technology groups, and others have begun a concerted push to close the “homework gap” that results from many low-income students’ inability to access reliable Internet connections outside of school.
“While high-speed Internet access is assumed for millions of Americans, it’s still out of reach for too many people—especially in low-income and rural communities,” Obama said in remarks at Oklahoma’s Durant High School last Wednesday.
This initiative won’t hit Arizona, unfortunately. It’s starting up in 28 communities around the country, none of them around here.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2015.
Good news David S. We sure need this ASAP!
Meanwhile federal policies guarantee a steady stream of low income families continuing to immigrate legally and illegally in numbers guaranteed to stay right ahead of the numbers helped by these programs.
Congress already funded Head start $17 billion for early childhood development in 2015. How much more do you need?
Congress funded head start with $17 billion this year for early childhood education. How much more do you need?
$20 million? Didn’t the courts rule last year that the state legislature owes it’s schools over $300 million? $20 million is not a whole lot of money. According to the most recent (2013) American Community Survey from the census bureau there are around 450,000 children in Arizona under the age of 5, 20 million dollars works out to about $44 a kid without assuming any administrative loss. This really is a small amount of money, and a pittance in comparison to what the state has been withholding from out schools.
From the article cited:
“This is a development grant, and it allows us to do a lot of the infrastructure work that has to be in place before we can really start expanding the number of kids that are getting into these programs … So it is a game-changer in that sense.”
Kelley Murphy with the Children’s Action Alliance
“”With this grant, we can provide higher-quality experiences for these kids right now,”
Patsy Rethore-Larson, director of children services with the Homeward Bound Program in Phoenix
Seems there is a bit of cognitive dissonance regarding the grant program. Building “infrastructure” or delivering services to “these kids.” A final point in the article notes the program has not been approved for funding beyond the $20 million in its first year – three years after the next election. I would call this “soft money.”
As HumanBean suggests, let’s not step over a dollar bill to pick up a nickel. The State of Arizona owes the public schools a minimum of $300 million, over a billion if the courts decide to extend the debt to cover additional years money was withheld. I’d call that “hard money.”
ECE is vital and needs reliable funding, not a grant unlikely to trickle down to children at risk and subject to the whims of the US congress.
$17 billion divided equally among fifty states is $340 million each state. If you paid each preschool teacher $50,000 per year you could hire 6800 teachers in each state.
When will you accept accountability? More money has never been the solution. It’s the start of bigger more expensive problems.
You have trapped them Rat T. Math is not their strong suit.
Rick, I just looked it up and the state of Arizona owes education 1.7 billion dollars and ordered 300+ to be paid back this year which as we all know has not been done…. at all.