By Shea Allen, WAAY-TV.
HUNTSVILLE, AL – A study released this week by the National Institute for Early Education Research puts Alabama’s state funded pre-kindergarten at the top of its list.
Advocates of First Class are quick to brag on the program that is setting the bar for early education across the country. “Our program is not pretty good, its excellent. Its the best in the nation according to the report that was put out this week,” says Allison de la Torre of the Alabama School Readiness Alliance.
NIEER ranks states by how well they measure up to a set of ten benchmarks that include early learning standards, teacher education and child-teacher ratios. Alabama is one of only five states nationwide to meet all ten.
Local pre-kindergarten teachers like Kendra Draper say the state’s focus on early childhood education is spot on. ” I think that we’ve hit it right on the money to begin with them when they’re young. They are sponges at this age. They are ready to soak up everything. When we get them this early we get them excited about school and it affects them from here on out,” says Draper.
Draper says pre-k is necessary to help young children learn the behaviors and social skills associated with school. She says its challenging for a child to focus on academics in kindergarten when they have never been taught how to interact and behave in the school environment. She says children who enter kindergarten without ever having been exposed to the classroom setting, start off at a disadvantage.
This is the sixth year in a row Alabama’s pre-kindergarten program has exceeded all ten of NIEER’s benchmarks. But strikingly, the state’s exemplary program is only reaching six percent of Alabama four year olds.
Jan Hume, Director of the Alabama State Office of School Readiness says the program’s growth hit a wall several years ago. “Under Governor Riley’s administration, there was a very clear plan about the growth of the program over a several year period. That plan was really derailed when the recession hit and the economy went down the drain,” says Hume.
But Hume says the support of Governor Bentley and Alabama lawmakers is good news for the program. She says the momentum and growing excitement is good news for growth.
Currently, only about 3,800 four year olds in Alabama are enrolled in state-funded pre-k. Advocates hope that with support of both lawmakers and the business community, the state will find the resources to expand the program so that every child in Alabama can benefit from it.
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