Pre-K expansion on track for statewide start

At a pre-K classroom in Cleveland, teacher Doreen Scott watched last week as Caleb Spires played with toy farm animals. Scott asked about a pig the boy had in his hand.

“He’s going to the barn,” Caleb said.

Scott’s question represented more than curiousity.

“We elicit responses from them so we know what they’re thinking,” she said. “If a child just gives me one word, it’s our responsibility to ask them to expand.”

Gov. Phil Bredesen made expanding pre-K a priority of his legislative agenda in the last session of the General Assembly.

In June, Bredesen signed a law allowing $25 million in lottery proceeds 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.

Last summer 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.

“If we can start a good (academic) foundation right now, it’s going to affect everything they do in life,” Scott said.

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.

The appropriation approved by lawmakers this year did not come without resistance. Some lawmakers, including some Democrats, criticized Bredesen’s plan as taking away from the lottery’s focus of providing scholarships for college students.