Pilot preschool program’s success justifies governor’s initiative
MURFREESBORO — School teacher Cheryl Schmidt said she supports the governor’s effort to expand preschool in Tennessee because she’s seen the results.
She taught at Northfield Elementary in Murfreesboro, which has been running a pre-kindergarten program since 1999 as part of the state’s voluntary pilot program.
“We found children who participated to be more successful in kindergarten and beyond,” said Schmidt, who now teaches at Murfreesboro’s Bellwood Discovery School where new pre-K classes are being started.
In June, Bredesen signed a law allowing lottery funds to be used to create about 300 new pre-K classrooms for some 6,000 poor or at-risk 4-year-olds.
Tennessee has been running a pre-K pilot program since 1998, but the state was spending only about $10 million a year and serving about 3,000 children.
Early last month, Bredesen traveled the state to announce the recipients of the $25 million in grants. Each of the 106 districts that requested a class got at least one, officials said. East Tennessee got the most with 112. Middle Tennessee got 107 and West Tennessee 81.
Preschool supporters have touted research in other states showing children who go to good preschool programs do better in school, graduate high school at a higher rate and are more likely to go to college.
“The brain grows faster from birth to 5 years old than any other time in a person’s life,” said Barbara “Bobbi” Lussier, director of the new Tennessee Office of Early Learning. “A child’s ability to be attentive and focused and follow direction actually emerges in the early years. We’ve been missing that.”
Schmidt said Northfield preschool students who may have started slowly at the beginning of the year had made vast improvements by the end. Those students continued to make good grades, compared to students who didn’t attend preschool, she said.
“If we had a control group that didn’t go to preschool, we noticed those who went did better on the first- and second-grade achievement tests,” she said.
Mary Wade, vice chair of the Murfreesboro City School Board, said the program creates a level playing field for not just at-risk youth, but for children of all economic backgrounds.
“It really helps them be ahead of the game,” Wade said. “It gets them ready academically and socially. They learn things they probably wouldn’t normally know until they got to kindergarten or first grade.”
Bredesen has said he plans to return to the General Assembly each year with a request for at least $25 million from the lottery, plus an increase from normal revenue growth.
Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said he supports the preschool initiative, but has argued that it should have another funding source other than the lottery, which is also funding college scholarships.
“I don’t want it to cause the scholarship program to be eroded,” said Cohen, who sponsored legislation in the recent General Assembly to raise scholarship amounts. “There could come a time when that $25 million may be a problem.”
Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, said the governor’s plan is tolerable compared to his original plan of wanting to start a universal preschool program, which he believes would have been a waste of money.
He said research has shown that “for most students who are in the third grade, you can’t tell who went to pre-K and who didn’t.”
Nevertheless, Bredesen said he hopes to have the program opened to all 4-year-olds and fully funded by the time he leaves office in six years, assuming he is re-elected.
“I very much would like to do that,” Bredesen said. “We estimate roughly $150 to $175 million is what it would cost to let everyone participate. That’s a realistic plan.”