Bounds still making a case for pre-kindergarten

Editorials

July 28, 2008

By SHELIA BYRD,Associated Press Writer The Laurel Leader-Call Mon Jul 28, 2008, 08:45 AM CDT

Mississippi Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds appeared discouraged by lawmakers’ response to his pitch for prekindergarten legislation during a committee meeting this past regular session.

Sen. Tom King, R-Petal, was one of the lawmakers resisting the idea. King’s contention was that parents should be responsible for preparing their children for school. Bounds had hit a brick wall — the same barrier pre-K proposals face year after year.

But by session’s end, lawmakers had done something unprecedented. They approved $3 million for the state Department of Human Services to use for two of its childcare education programs that had been funded through grants.

For years, lawmakers have been unwilling to put state money into an early education program. Former Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, a Republican, had made early childhood education a plank in her campaign platform, but the most she could wrangle from the Legislature was $1 million to study the proposal.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour has said the state can’t afford a mandatory pre-K program.

Mississippi remains the only state in the South and one of 12 in the nation without a state-funded pre-K program.

The standard argument from lawmakers is a lack of money. Indeed, the budget adopted for the current fiscal year gives level or reduced funding to many agencies.

Lawmakers were able to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program this year, but only through a shell game of diversions from other pots of money. MAEP is an equity funding formula for the state’s 152 school districts. It’s supposed to ensure all districts get enough money to meet midlevel accreditation standards.

The full funding of MAEP has given lawmakers a reason to pat themselves on the backs.

But it looks as if Bounds isn’t letting them off that easy. He’s still making the case for a state-funded pre-K program. At Bounds’ request, David L. Kirp, a University of California-Berkeley professor, was in Jackson last week to discuss the advantages of early childhood education.

Kirp has written the book, “The Sandbox Investment,” which touts the long-term economic benefits derived from pre-K programs, including reduced unemployment and crime rates.

It’s not like lawmakers haven’t heard all that before. They know the state is near the bottom of the nation when it comes to education. They know that an uneducated populace is a drain on the economy. They can easily rattle off the main problems with the education system.

Some Capitol watchers contend politics may be at play.

House Education Committee Chairman Cecil Brown, a Democrat from Jackson, said his chamber tried to pass a bill during the regular session to create a task force to make recommendations about whether a state-funded pre-K program is feasible.

“The House Republicans killed it,” said Brown.

Rep. Rita Martinson, a Republican from Madison, said money was the root of her opposition. She said lawmakers struggle annually to find money for MAEP, which still “has a lot of work to be done to make it successful.”

It wouldn’t make sense to implement another program as “involved” as early education, Martinson said, explaining that the state would have to determine how the funding system would be set up and how much of the financial burden would be placed on local districts.

“I would hate to see us go off half-cocked and start a program we can’t keep funded,” she said.

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