Educators Push for More Pre-K Funding
In President Obama’s State of the Union speech he stressed that pre-kindergarten programs should be available to all American children. Here in Mississippi, our legislature only provides enough funding for about 1,500 of the state’s estimated 40,000 three and four-year-olds to attend Pre-k.
Through an early learning collaborative passed in 2013, the state is now putting just $3 million into pre-k funding. To put that in perspective, neighboring Alabama invests more than $120 million.
Early education experts on the Coast say we need to pressure our legislature to make investing in our young ones a priority. United Way of South Mississippi CEO Cynthia Walker said, “Public pre-k is nothing more than a will of the people. In our state, I think if our voters and the constituents who look at this issue and feel strongly about it will begin to voice their opinions with their legislators, they would begin to understand how we really feel about it. In the absence of any kind of conversation, a legislator can easily say that it’s not a big question to those folks that I represent.”
Mississippi continually gets passed over on federal early education grants. The feds say this is because the state is not showing that it is investing in itself.
Through an early learning collaborative passed in 2013, the state is now putting just $3 million into pre-k funding. To put that in perspective, neighboring Alabama invests more than $120 million.
Early education experts on the Coast say we need to pressure our legislature to make investing in our young ones a priority. United Way of South Mississippi CEO Cynthia Walker said, “Public pre-k is nothing more than a will of the people. In our state, I think if our voters and the constituents who look at this issue and feel strongly about it will begin to voice their opinions with their legislators, they would begin to understand how we really feel about it. In the absence of any kind of conversation, a legislator can easily say that it’s not a big question to those folks that I represent.”
Mississippi continually gets passed over on federal early education grants. The feds say this is because the state is not showing that it is investing in itself.
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