We usually wait until Friday to wrap up the week’s news, but with some of the nation’s biggest states currently debating major cuts to early education programs, it’s time to take a look at what is happening.
Currently, Michigan, Ohio and California are weighing significant cuts, but perhaps the saddest news is that Illinois, with its pioneering early learning initiatives, is weighing reductions that could toss 27,000 kids out of state-supported Preschool for All programs, Ounce of Prevention reports, via Market Watch.
But, potential cuts in all four states loom large. In Michigan, lawmakers are considering a $213 million cut that would obliterate the state-supported Great Start Readiness Program, according to one source. Given that California’s population rivals that of many nations, any significant cuts there would reverberate.
Still, it is too early to say how these big states will cut.
“It is tough to say. In all of these states the budget battles will be protracted … It is going to be tough in these states to protect funding for pre-k,” said Stephanie Rubin, senior officer at the Campaign at Pew Center on the States and a veteran observer of state early learning budget battles. “Pew’s position is if these policymakers are truly concerned about their future economy … and not compounding the recession, they will protect investment in pre-k.”
(Washington state already took its lumps, which were pretty small by comparison.)
These possible cuts add yet another ingredient to what is shaping up to be one of the most confusing and exciting years in early education policy. It is confusing because we heard a lot about states fighting to protect preschool, pre-k and child care programs, but it looks like these efforts will take hits like everything else in the states’ ugly sprint to close yawning budget deficits. Yet it is also exciting because the Obama administration already pumped billions of dollars into early learning, and promises even more action.
(Thanks to Pre-K Now for highlighting these budget battles.)