Pre-K was Winner in ShowdownEducation program for 4-year-olds became key in state budget battleBy MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Friday, May 16, 2003
ALBANY -- This week's budget showdown between the governor and the Legislature is bound for the state's history books, but its most critical chapters may have been the nursery school storybooks "The Kissing Hand" and "The Missing Letters." Those are the stories Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver read in two visits recently to 4-year-olds in a pre-kindergarten class at an elementary school near the state Capitol. The students gathered on the floor for Silver's readings, within a ring of reporters and television cameras, as Silver repeated his case for state funding of universal pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds in the state. The events gave Silver the opportunity to repeat his mantra that Gov. George Pataki was "slamming the door of the school house for 60,000 4-year-olds.? They also underscored the importance of the relatively small program in the budget to Silver and Assembly Democrats. The program costs $3.8 million, a pittance in the state's $93 billion of spending where even pet projects are negotiable. But "Universal pre-K" became an immovable object, a line in the playground sand. Pre-K is an academic program that gives children a stronger basis for kindergarten and allows schools to identify learning disabilities earlier. On Thursday, the trials of providing schools with the option to offer universal pre-K -- which faces annual cuts despite broad support for the concept -- ended for now when the Legislature overrode Line Item Veto No. 20. With it, pre-kindergarten classes for as many as 65,000 of the state's 250,000 4-year-olds will be funded for another year. "In terms of education funds, pre-K was the most important program to recover," said Assembly Education Chairman Steven Sanders, a Manhattan Democrat. "There is plenty of literature that shows kids who are in a pre-K program do better throughout their years in school. ... There is a greater likelihood that youngsters will remain on grade in their various subjects, and there's much less need for remediation and special education." Even Pataki, in his 1998 State of the State address, said: "Let's declare, once and for all, what we all know to be the case: Pre-K works." This year's battle may also mark a turning point for pre-kindergarten, which, because it is not a mandated program, faces uncertain funding each year. "I think (universal pre-K) has had a growing role over the last several years, because growing numbers of children were being served, schools were beginning to see the impact on first and second graders, and it has become a national movement," said Karen Schimke, representing the Emergency Coalition to Save Universal Pre-K. "I think pre-K has become sort of the poster child of whether we succeed in this country."
Back to Research For policy makers and researchers
