The state’s clear Pre-K responsibility, Raleigh News & Observer (8.26.11)
Thousands of eligible 4-year-olds are being turned away, right now, from state-funded pre-kindergarten classes statewide. Each of these wait-listed children may have lost his or her one chance to receive academic services prior to kindergarten, and will enter school next year already behind. Why? Because this spring, the legislature slashed the budget for pre-kindergarten, and now these children have nowhere to go.
The programs that were cut, More at Four (now known as NC Pre-K) and Smart Start, delivered a nationally renowned early childhood education model that actually worked. Poor children who attended state-funded pre-kindergarten did better on their third grade math and reading tests than poor children who did not. Also, a recent Duke study showed that, in counties where state pre-kindergarten funds were spent, all students did better on their third-grade end-of-grade tests, and were 10 percent less likely to be referred to special education.
These gains were made even though state-funded pre-K served only half of the approximately 67,000 eligible 4-year-olds: imagine what effect a fully-funded program could have. Results like this lead to huge cost savings for those schools, since special education and remediation services cost much more than pre-kindergarten classes do.
This spring, in spite of the evidence that pre-kindergarten works, the legislature severely cut the pre-kindergarten budget and restructured the program completely. These decisions are devastating to the families who cannot pay for pre-kindergarten classes. They are also, we believe, unconstitutional. Thankfully, the state Supreme Court now gets to stand up for these at-risk children. Let’s hope the justices uphold Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning’s order before it’s too late for this year’s 4-year-olds.
Here’s a quick primer on the decision the Supreme Court will soon be making:
In 2000, as part of the Leandro case establishing the state constitutional right to a quality education, Judge Manning ordered that all eligible at-risk children receive pre-kindergarten. The state appealed this ruling, but the Supreme Court, in 2004, agreed with Manning that at-risk children had been denied their fundamental right to a sound, basic education.
The court also agreed with Manning that the right to education includes state-funded preparation for kindergarten. But the court, rather than upholding Manning’s pre-K order, gave the legislative and executive branches the first chance to find a remedy and effectuate the right to state-funded school preparation. The legislature came up with the same solution that Manning originally ordered: pre-kindergarten classes.
From the 2004 ruling until this spring’s budget, More at Four and Smart Start evolved and expanded, through painstaking legislative scrutiny, evaluation and funding, into our sole state-funded mechanism for educating pre-kindergartners. The state has touted these programs as evidence of their compliance with the state constitution.
But now the legislature has eviscerated state-funded pre-kindergarten, offering nothing to replace it. Meanwhile, as more families are pushed into grinding poverty, the number of at-risk students with no money to pay for pre-kindergarten is growing, and the constitution still requires state-funded school preparation for at-risk kids.
Last month, Manning stepped in again. He struck down as unconstitutional some pre-K provisions of the budget cuts, and he reminded the state that all at-risk children in North Carolina are entitled to pre-kindergarten.
Soon after, Gov. Beverly Perdue issued Executive Order 100, enforcing Manning’s ruling. Yet the legislature refuses to comply with these judicial or executive orders, and has appealed to Manning and the Supreme Court to abolish this common-sense right. Luckily, the Supreme Court promised seven years ago to protect these at-risk pre-kindergartners if the legislature failed to. Now the court will get its chance.
But even as the court hears this appeal, we don’t need the courts or the governor to tell us what is obvious – children who have no access to academic services prior to kindergarten start school behind their peers and never catch up. We know that most of those children fall farther behind and drop out, end up in prison or both.
North Carolina, in More at Four and Smart Start, developed an early childhood education system of which we could be proud, even as we urged its expansion so that all kids who needed it were served. NC Pre-K, the new name for state-funded pre-kindergarten, can also make us proud, if the court acts quickly to salvage it. The at-risk 4-year-olds waiting in line for classrooms statewide, as well as future 4-year-olds, have a fundamental, constitutional right to the opportunity to receive a sound, basic education. It’s imperative that we all ensure that they get it.
Erwin Byrd and Lewis Pitts are attorneys at Advocates for Children’s Services of Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc. They, with others, are counsel for amici curiae (friends of the court) in the ongoing Leandro-case litigation.