[StBernard] EDITORIAL: Shreveport Times supports Governor Blanco's Pre-K investment

[Westley Annis]

EDITORIAL: Shreveport Times supports Governor Blanco's Pre-K investment

Periodically, the press office will publish editorials and columns that feature Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's work in various areas. 

Shreveport Times: Editorial: Pre-K more important than ever
Published May 14, 2007
View the article online <http://shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070514/OPINION03/705120338/1058/OPINION03> 

If there's any proposal now before the Louisiana Legislature that has the potential for long-range benefit to the state and its citizens, it is the one that increases support for the state's LA4 Pre-K program by $30 million.

That's because high-quality pre-kindergarten helps all children to start school-ready, to continue records of success, to go on to graduate from high school and college, and to become productive citizens. It's an investment that has shown positive results like none other and it can go a long way toward helping the state and the South overcome its historical deficit in education. Put strictly in dollars-and-sense terms, for every dollar spent on Pre-K, the state gets back nearly $8 over time.

That's the unequivocal word from the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) in Atlanta, which Thursday released a comprehensive report that concludes that Pre-K has become the South's most important comparative advantage in education.

It is comforting to note that SEF's report has high praise for Louisiana in the Pre-K area, noting that its $4,618 per-pupil expenditure ranks it 14th in the nation and, more importantly, that its quality standards have placed Louisiana among the top states for the past three years. In fact, the report labeled as "phenomenal" the proportion of learning gains accomplished by the first class of LA4 students from their initial half-year program into the third grade.

It cited a Georgetown University longitudinal student of LA4's impact on the learning of low-income children. That study found that "the LA4 Pre-K children increased by 12 percent the proportion of low-income children scoring at or above basic." In other words, it said, the positive effects of one year of a half-day Pre-K "equaled the effects from all of the cumulative effects of all other K-12 reforms over six years."

The SEF study showed that Louisiana has tripled its Pre-K enrollment rate since 2001, when less than three percent of 3- and 4-year-olds were in one of the three state-administered Pre-K programs. Now the state ranks 20th in the nation for having an estimated 9 percent, and is one of only six states requiring full-day Pre-K programs.

As more funding becomes available, more school systems in the state will be able to benefit from the advantages that come with Pre-K programs. In 2002, 17 Louisiana school districts used the program to positively and dramatically impact young lives. In the northern half of the state, these included DeSoto, Natchitoches, Rapides, Monroe and Bogalusa. Since then more have joined in, lately including Caddo Parish, but every school system in the state should be involved.

Lawmakers currently reviewing Gov. Kathleen Blanco's budget proposals should immediately give all thumbs up to the one that increases support for the Pre-K investment in Louisiana's future.

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