Michigan advocates gird for big preschool funding battles in 2010

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s newsletter features two special reports on the dollars, cents, and sense of investing in Michigan’s youngest residents. Yet another gigantic budget deficit in 2010 means state funding for pre-school education and other early childhood programs is once again on the chopping block — despite reams of research suggesting big returns on investment. Our special reports today look at the dire straits for early childhood programs in Michigan and put measure Michigan’s early childhood funding against the investments in others states.

By John Foren

The intensity of Lansing parent M.C. Rothhorn’s voice strengthens with the passion of a true believer, sounding like many of his fellow advocates of preschool education.

Like them, Rothhorn drops child development facts into a conversation with ease (“You know, 90 percent of the brain is developed by age 5″) and knows the debate over universal preschool backwards and forwards. He’s not just the father of two young daughters, but also parent liaison in Ingham County to the Great Start Collaborative, part of Michigan’s preschool system.

And like many of his colleagues and early childhood boosters, Rothhorn is going on the offensive, emboldened by the Michigan Senate’s failed attempt last year to slash preschool programs in Michigan.

“I’m outraged, it’s heartbreaking,” Rothhorn says of the Senate’s aborted move to virtually eliminate some $100 million in preschool funding to help solve a huge budget deficit. “I never want a budget to be balanced because of children who can’t vote.”

But, tellingly, Rothhorn says, “The idea for me is, it’s not over.”

Polls show the public overwhelmingly backs preschool education, even at the expense of higher taxes, he says. He and other advocates plan to trumpet those kinds of findings in coming months as early childhood funding remains a likely budget target.

“I don’t want to be considered an angry parent. … I understand the political system is broken, and this is only way to fix it, through personal action,” he says.

Expect to hear lots more from people such as Rothhorn in coming months. Preschool advocates are in the fight of their lives, and they plan to use everything in their arsenal, including the strong support that shows up in polls.

The Early Childhood Investment Corporation, the Lansing-based organization that advocates for Great Start programs, will release a study this month that puts the issue in dollars-and-cents terms.

The findings from the Minnesota-based Wilder Foundation show how much the public eventually pays in crime, welfare, health care expenses and child care for low-income students not adequately prepared for kindergarten.

And the research contends there are huge economic benefits for a prosperous Michigan, such as increased tax revenues based on a child’s improved earning potential.

Children who are not in pre-kindergarten programs cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year; the sheer volume of kindergartners who have to repeat the grade costs $100 million annually, says Judy Samelson, head of the Early Childhood Investment Corporation.

“We’re kidding ourselves that the first day kids are learning is when they are 5 years old,” she says.

Legislators are simply “scared” and “passing the buck,” ducking tough decisions during critical financial times, Samelson says. And that’s forcing preschool advocates to take a stronger stand and make more forceful public appeals.

“Yes, it’s true we have fewer dollars in Michigan, but at the end of day we have $44 billion in the budget,” she says. “It’s about deciding we have to helps kids in this age range because it’s the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.”

First and foremost, preschool supporters want to spare their programs from being threatened with the state funding axe again. As much as they can, they want to make preschool education as much of an entitlement as corrections or Medicaid spending.

The state system now is supposed to be geared toward lower income, at-risk children, though the application criteria is so broad that middle-class parents can squeeze their kids into openings.

Michigan’s system gets generally good reviews, though there are worries it leaves out too many needy low-income kids in favor of middle-class children who get in through various criteria.

That prompts fears from some advocates that at-risk children are slipping further behind and are being overlooked by the system. In addition, some contend the state doesn’t have the resources to monitor preschools.

A 2005 Rutgers University study found Michigan preschool programs produced significantly higher vocabulary and math scores in the participants studied.

The kudos were repeated in a 2007 study by the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation.

The level of Michigan 4-year-olds participating in preschool has stayed about the same in the past decade, standing at 18 percent in 2008, according to the annual yearbook of the National Institute for Early Education Research.

Ultimately, advocates would like to see a publicly funded universal preschool system open to anyone.

The idea is touted by Upjohn Institute economist Timothy Bartik – who focuses on the economic development benefits – and was recently backed by the Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children.

Researchers at the Upjohn Institute are trying to develop a universal preschool model for Kalamazoo, using largely private funding and perhaps combining the federal Head Start preschool program with the state model.

“The question is whether Michigan is going to get out of its current pickle by doing what it’s currently doing, cutting budgets, or whether you change what you’re doing,” Bartik says.

Still, although early childhood advocates strongly believe in the concept, many say the time isn’t right politically, or financially, to tout the universal preschool idea.

“That’s the long-term goal,” Samelson says. “Short term (given the budget crunch), I would be an idiot to go out there and say every kid should have it.”

Given where Michigan budget talks are headed, she’s probably right.

The Republican leadership in the state Senate, namely Majority Leader Mike Bishop, expressed regret over cutting preschool funding from the state school aid fund and general fund.

But Bishop and his supporters said they had little choice because so many other programs required mandated funding to keep the state afloat.

A budget deal restored much of the education funding, though preschool advocates see the compromises as a sign of a seriously weakened program.

For instance, preschool money was put back in the state school aid fund for publicly financed Great Start Readiness Programs. However, local districts now have discretion to use those dollars in other areas, such as to make up for cuts in other programs.

The Legislature ended up cutting half the general fund money – or about $7 million – that had previously been awarded to private, non-profit programs to fund slots for low-risk children.

If this budget year looked bad for preschool education, expect more to come.

“If you look at the big picture of the budget, though we have money, most of it is already earmarked for other causes,” said state Sen. Tom George, an Appropriations Committee member from Kalamazoo.

“Within the current structure … there isn’t enough money. The formulas that drive existing programs consume all the money.”

George insists the only way to secure preschool education funding is by reforming the ballooning state health care system, notably reining in Medicaid.

But that’s a complex political equation (a microcosm of what’s going on in Washington) and no quick solution.

That’s part of the problem for preschool advocates. Guaranteeing their money comes with caveats, such as “We’ll make sure you have the funding you need if we can stop funding this other program.”

For instance, the Legislature’s decision to let districts use their preschool money for other purposes was “really underhanded,” said Susan B. Neuman, a prominent early childhood researcher at the University of Michigan and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“Preschool and early childhood always gets short shrift,” Neuman said.

Those on the front lines of the issue say there’s no question that political and budget priorities are backwards.

Rich Van Tol worked in special education, adult education, and K-12 before becoming director of early childhood programs for the Saginaw Intermediate School District. He says the preschool work is the most valuable.

“If we don’t do a really good job with preschoolers, the cost to society in general — whether it’s crime, kids dropping out of school — is going to continue to climb. It is the most important thing for us to do,” Van Tol says.

That’s confirmed by no less an authority than Edward Zigler, the Yale University professor known as “the father of Head Start” for helping to develop the federal program decades ago.

In a telephone interview from Yale, Zigler said preschool not only improves kids’ educational performance, but “life performance.”

Children who get at least two years of preschool socialize with others better and are superior at handling their emotions than those who don’t have early schooling, Zigler says.

A new study on the lifelong effects of Head Start show those attendees are more likely to go to college and be employed and much less likely to engage in crime, says Zigler, who has written numerous books on early childhood education.

“Head Start wasn’t just done by a bunch of preschool educators but development experts,” he says.

Of the quandary over funding preschool programs, Zigler says, “Everything in policy is a matter of cost and money. … We have to prioritize.”

Not everyone is sold on the vast advantages of preschool.

Douglas J. Besharov, a University of Maryland professor who’s also with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, is an expert on social policy and the poor.

Besharov can see preschool as one component in helping poor children with their special problems. But he thinks preschool proponents exaggerate how much their programs can narrow the social and educational difference between low-income and middle-class kids.

“There’s no question in my mind that the most effective way to help low-income kids is to get parents to do a better job raising them, and there’s no question in my mind that’s extremely difficult,” Besharov says.

“I wouldn’t hold out all these promises the achievement gap will disappear, blah, blah, blah.”

He’s even more adamant about universal preschool, saying there’s little evidence such programs make a difference for the majority of middle-class kids, who he says already get their needs met at home.

That kind of talk doesn’t dissuade preschool advocates from getting ready to promote their cause in Michigan like they’ve never had to before.

Samelson, of the Early Childhood Investment Corporation, is impatient with all the talk from lawmakers who say the right things about preschool education but insist there’s no money for it.

“I also say if they really, truly believe we should fund pre-k, or fund kids in early childhood, then they’re going to be willing to make the hard decisions,” she says.