Education, Careers & Professional News
Early Education Fast Becoming The Norm
But critics contend that poor children aren`t getting enough chance to enroll
It`s the hottest new trend among the 4-and-under set: Though state law does not require any school before the first grade, the number of children attending pre kindergarten in Harris County has increased by nearly 50 percent over the past five years.
The numbers reflect a growing national interest in early education as a way to prepare children for the classroom.
“I think in the next few years it`s just going to become a societal norm that all children attend pre-K,” said Mechiel Rozas, principal at Gabriela Mistral Early Childhood Center, one of two pre-kindergarten schools opened this year by the Houston Independent School District.
Area districts like Cypress-Fairbanks, Pasadena, Spring and Spring Branch have also vastly expanded their pre-K programs in recent years.
Even as more districts create pre-K programs, critics worry that disadvantaged children are not being enrolled. According to the National Institute for Early Education, research has found that children who attend preschool are less likely to be held back or require special education, are more likely to graduate from high school, not become involved in crime or become dependent on welfare.
“A rough rule of thumb is that there`s only enough money for maybe a third of the poor kids,” said Al Tarlov, retired executive director of the Texas Program for Society and Health and a key architect of the Texas Plan, an ongoing effort to expand preschool programs, improve their quality and make them more affordable.
Several states in recent years have created universal pre kindergarten programs, with no eligibility requirements, for 4-year-olds. Texas children, however, qualify for pre kindergarten only if they are economically disadvantaged, homeless or unable to speak and understand English. The federal Head Start program serves only families with earnings below the poverty line.
Otherwise, families are on their own in coming up with the tuition for a private program, where prices can range from $106 to $165 per week.
It`s an investment that Donnell and Pamelar Green are willing to make on behalf of their 4-year-old grandson SyrColby Rogers. Since the couple works full-time, they don`t qualify for subsidized preschool programs and must pay the $440 monthly tuition themselves.
“You can do a lot with $440 a month,” but making sure her grandson is ready for kindergarten is more important, Pamelar Green said. “I can already see a big difference.”
SyrColby likes books, and wants a bedtime story read to him every night. He also knows the alphabet, can recognize his name and is learning his telephone number, his grandmother said proudly.
Carol Shattuck, president of the Houston-based Collaborative for Children, said that surveys show parents generally support public funding for universal pre kindergarten. “We just have not as a state been able to allocate the resources that would make (universal pre-K) possible,” she said.
Several area school districts have decided to make the investment in early education. Last year, public and charter schools in Harris County served 37,102 pre kindergarteners — a 47 percent enrollment increase compared with the 25,306 children served in 1999-2000, according to data from the Texas Education Agency.
HISD, the area`s largest school district, serves the most area pre kindergarteners and has pushed in recent years to serve all eligible children. Still, about 1,300 eligible 4-year-olds were left out of the program last year because of a lack of resources.
School officials don`t yet know how many pre kindergarteners have enrolled this year because of ongoing registration and transfers between schools, said district spokeswoman Lisa Bunse. But she said the district is prepared to serve more than 15,500 students, “and we will find room, should there be more.”
The annual cost is estimated at about $20.5 million.
Yadira Escobar hopes to enroll her son, Joseph Vasquez, who turns four in October, into a publicly funded preschool program this year. Her goal is to get him away from the television set and into a classroom.
She tried the elementary school her older child attends, but Joseph was placed on a waiting list because of his age. Escobar said she now plans to look into Head Start because she doesn`t want her son to “lose a year of school,” she said.
In Harris County, almost 6,500 preschool-age children are enrolled in Head Start programs. Others attend 1,250 private, nonprofit or faith-based preschools in the area.
Testing pressures in the early grades have increased interest in early childhood education, Rozas said. Also, “we know a lot more about brain research, and we now know about how much children acquire in the first few years,” he said. “We`ve found that the children made enormous gains in pre-K.”
Dagoberto Orozco thinks the publicly-funded pre-K program his daughter attended last year helped prepare her for kindergarten this year at Smith Elementary in Alief.
“She`s familiar with everything,” he said