Pennsylvania 2007
Pennsylvania has provided national leadership in the development and governance of a comprehensive early childhood program. The Commonwealth’s quality rating system, Keystone STARS is marked by successful community engagement, funded supports, and a high level of participation among early care and education providers. However, on the preK front, a political compromise in 2003 resulted in school-based delivery model and minimal community buy-in. The result: fewer than 45 of more than 500 school districts statewide offer preK, and the Commonwealth has had to develop a public-private partnership to grow the interest and capacity for school collaborations with community-based providers.
Keystone State Welcomes Community-based PreK
We knew 2007 would be different. The new preK initiative, Pennsylvania PreK Counts, encouraged grant applications from child care, Head Start, private nursery schools certified by the state Department of Education, as well as public schools. And PreK Counts wasn’t a stand alone – the Rendell Administration positioned the new program as one of several key elements of an early childhood budget proposal, which included increases to the Child Care Works subsidy program for low-income families and Keystone STARS.
ECEC joined a broad coalition of advocates in the PreK Today Campaign and helped win support for all parts of the early childhood budget:
• $85M to support the Child Care Assistance program in meeting the costs of an increase in the state minimum wage
• $11M to support the Keystone STARS quality rating system
• $75M to launch the new PreK Counts program.
Pennsylvania PreK Counts was an historic win, but it might have been otherwise. Our goal was to assure that Pre-K Counts affords the widest possible participation of quality child care and early learning programs, and that the Commonwealth builds upon its commitment to existing early care and education programs. So, when we heard that legislators tired of “welfare” programs were considering funding the new preK program instead of increases in child care subsidy or quality, ECEC partnered with the Pennsylvania Child Care Association to launch a grassroots and targeted lobbying campaign specifically focused on the child care components of the budget. Within six weeks, together child care advocates had secured commitments to fund the Child Care Works and Keystone STARS programs at the requested levels.
PreK shouldn’t pit one funding stream against another, one early learning provider against another, one low income child against another. If political leaders in the Keystone state had read the fiscal situation differently, quite possibly the state could have welcomed a new preK program while undercutting the very funding that assures community-based programs can participate in preK. Working together, in program design and implementation as well as advocacy, child care and preK stakeholders can move a broad agenda for children.
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