Report Says Connecticut is Middle of the Pack in State-Funded Preschooling
By Adam Kredo
WASHINGTON, March 23-Connecticut spent less per preschool student last year than it did three yeas earlier even as it increased the number of 4-year-olds enrolled in public pre-kindergarten classes by almost 42 percent, according to a report published Thursday by the National Institute for Early Education Research.
According to the report, Connecticut provided $6,662 per child enrolled in preschool spending in the 2004-2005 school year. But that per-student total was down from the $7,456 spent in 2001-2002 in after-inflation dollars.
Nationally, the report found that even as state-financed programs increased enrollment by more than 100,000 among 4-year-olds from 2001-2005, state spending per child decreased in 11 states, as it did in Connecticut.
The state spent $48,619,536 on pre-kindergarten education in 2004-2005, not including fees and subsidies collected at the local level, the institute reported.
These numbers do not include pre-school students enrolled in private schools or in the federally financed Head Start program.
The institute is a nonpartisan research based organization operating out of Rutgers University.
“The State of Preschool,” an annual yearbook which has been published in each of the past three years, aims to rank all 50 states on access to, resources for and quality of state preschool initiatives.
During a press conference Thursday, W. Steven Barnett, director of the institute, said “preschool is an investment that pays off educationally and economically.”
Although state spending per public school pupil had declined overall, he said, state spending on preschool students grew 7.5 percent nationally over the past three years.
“Meaningful progress can be made for a few hundred million dollars,” Barnett said. “If we wanted to serve all 4-year-olds in quality programs, well that would require expanding state spending several times over what it is currently.”
He added, “Even that’s a vanishingly small percentage of our national income.”
In 2004-05, Connecticut enrolled 15 percent of the 4-year-old population and 2 percent of the 3-year-old population in a state-financed preschool program, according to the report.
For 4-year-olds, this is up from 9 percent in 2001-2002, but for 3-year-olds, it is down from 3 percent.
Connecticut ranked 16 th in the nation in the percentage of 4-year-olds in such programs and 11 th in the percentage of 3-year-olds,
The report also gave Connecticut a five on a scale of one to ten for quality standards, marking it down for instructor credentials, among other standards. The state requires teachers to have either a bachelor’s degree or a child development associate credential, but the report says Connecticut does not meet the benchmark of all preschool teachers having a bachelor’s degree.
Connecticut did meet the institute’s benchmarks for class size and staff-to-child ratio, according to the report.
During the press conference, experts from both the institute and the Pew Charitable Trusts, which helped pay for the report, emphasized the need for long-term foresight in state preschool investments.
“The ones that think long-term had the highest rates returned,” said Robert H. Dugger, managing director of Tudor Investment Corp., an assets management fund, who spoke during the press conference.
Dugger said an estimated state investment of $18,000 for preschool education could potentially yield gains worth $150,000 after the child’s education ends and he or she enters the workforce.
Oklahoma ranked first on access for 4-year-olds, and New Mexico ranked last among the 38 states with preschool programs. Arkansas ranked first on the report’s quality standards checklist.
Eleven states, including New Hampshire and Rhode Island, did not offer any preschool programs during the 2004-2005 school year.
