Study Points To Sharp Cuts In State Pre-K Spending

A new report detailing an overall drop in state-by-state funding for pre-K education generated widespread national coverage today and last night, with two of three network news broadcasts devoting a total of nearly five minutes to the story. Coverage predictably presented the report as bad news, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan was portrayed as dismayed by the findings. Meanwhile, a plethora of local reports focused on how their state was portrayed in the study. The CBS Evening News (4/26, story 10, 2:35, Couric), in a segment detailing the positive impact of early childhood education, reported that a new Rutgers University study "says states cut nearly $30 million in funding to preschools last year. That left only a quarter of four-year-olds enrolled in pre-K programs." The piece profiles a successful New Jersey pre-K program and cites research touting the benefits of such programs, but notes that "not every state has enough money to pay for what the evidence suggests is worthwhile. Ten states cut pre-K funds this year. Ten more don't have pre-K at all." A text version of this report was published on the CBS News (4/27) website.

 

In its coverage of the report, NBC Nightly News (4/26, story 8, 2:15, Williams) reported that "the Secretary of Education warned that cutting spending on early childhood education isn't smart. But a new report from Rutgers in New Jersey says a lot of states are choosing to do just that. And spending on pre-K is getting cut. " NBC adds that the study "suggests that state funding for preschool education is on the decline. Nationwide, state per-student spending for preschoolers averaged $4,028 in 2010, $114 less than 2009 and $700 less than in 2001." Duncan is shown saying, "I simply think we can't win the future by cheating children at the starting line."

 

The Washington Post (4/26, Sieff) reports that the study comes from the National Institute fof Early Education Research at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, and found that states' pre-K funding "declined between 2009 and 2010, even as the Obama administration urged states to increase pre-kindergarten programs for 3- and 4-year-olds." The Post notes that Duncan "urged states to cut other programs before removing funding from early-childhood education, but such advice was rejected across the country. Duncan said yesterday that the cuts present 'real challenges to young people who are desperately fighting to enter the mainstream.'" The Post adds that funding inched up in Maryland and Virginia, "but Virginia slipped in the report's rankings, which also consider the quality of state pre-K programs." A brief item in the New York Times (4/27, A17, Dillon, Subscription Publication) attributes the cuts to the recession, noting that the report showed "total spending by states decreasing for the first time since experts began keeping track."