Return to story

Pre-K: Thinking beyond the A-B-Cs A REVOLUTION IN LEARNING BEGINS WITH THE VERY YOUNG

February 10, 2008 12:16 am

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--

When I first campaigned for governor, back in 2001 and 2002, one of my questions to teachers and parents and others I encountered in my travels statewide was this: "If you had just one dollar to put into education, where would you put it?" Almost universally, the answer was pre-K.

Over the past few years, there's been a revolution under way in Tennessee. A revolution in the way we think about learning--a revolution based on the realization that it is never too early to open the doors of education and opportunity to our young people.

Five years after those conversations on the campaign trail, Tennessee has gone from a small pilot project serving 3,000 students to a statewide voluntary pre-K program that, as of this school year, is serving 17,000 students in more than 900 classrooms.

The Old Testament Proverb says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

Preschool may have begun as a program for at-risk children, but today it is truly a program for every child. Too many children from families of all means just aren't ready for the rigors of school. One study found that almost half of all children who don't know their A-B-Cs when they begin kindergarten are from middle-class families.

Access to a quality pre-K classroom gives all children--regardless of race or family income--a leg up in school. Most importantly, it clears the way to an important "signpost" of a child who will do well in school--reading at grade level by the end of third grade.

In the years since we first proposed expanding access to pre-K, I spoke to hundreds of teachers and principals. To a person, they told me they can tell immediately which children have participated in a pre-K program and which ones have not.

Their anecdotal observations are supported by extensive research, which shows that children begin to form basic cognitive abilities in their earliest years, and those who aren't exposed to letters, numbers, and social skills quickly fall behind those who are.

high scores on tests

One expert opinion: The Journal of the American Medical Association found that adults who participated in a high-quality pre-K program are more likely to be literate and more likely to have enrolled in college.

And from our own research in Tennessee, the state's pilot program found that children who participated in pre-K scored higher than the state average on first-grade achievement tests.

In Tennessee, we focused on three core principles in developing our plans to expand pre-K.

Make sure there's a certified teacher in early childhood in every classroom.

Begin with a small student-teacher ratio and never allow that ratio to grow.

Require that every pre-K classroom use a State Board-endorsed curriculum.

Underlying each of those principles was a basic philosophy: No compromise on quality standards. If that meant going small to get it right, then we'd go small. If it meant stretching the implementation phase out to get it right, that was how we'd do it.

What we discovered was that quality pre-K wasn't going to come cheap. But we weren't looking for cheap, we were looking to do it right. We needed to spread out the cost and we also wanted to make sure the local communities felt invested in the program--that it wasn't just state money funding the programs. What we proposed was a partnership between the state and any local government interested in establishing or expanding access to its own pre-K classrooms.

Our plan was simple. The state provides a portion of the money. The local government supplies matching funds. But what I believe makes us different from other programs across the country is the flexibility and the creativity we built intentionally into our program. Local communities have the ability to partner with corporate citizens right in their own backyards, organizations like the United Way, or local businesses, to help raise the funds for new classrooms.

Local communities also have the ability to partner with a variety of organizations to find a quality home for the new classrooms. At the end of the day, we didn't care if the classroom was in a church, or in a private child-care setting, or in a Boys and Girls Club, as long as the community abided by our three core principles.

Since then, our emphasis on quality over quantity, on substance over show, has paid off. In 2007, the National Institute for Early Education Research ranked Tennessee among the top eight states in the nation for the quality of its pre-K program, with our state meeting nine of the 10 national standards defined by the group.

success stories abound

While I was pleased that Tennessee received national recognition for its work in pre-K, what really hits home are the success stories we hear about Tennessee children spreading their wings as a result of their experience.

Children like Courtney Long, a little girl from Mount Pleasant in middle Tennessee. Courtney's mother, Cheryl Long, had basically been a single mom of Courtney and her older sister since their dad left for Iraq a couple of years ago. Because of the pre-K program, Courtney was able to begin learning early, and her mom was able to pursue her nursing degree at the local community college--something she couldn't have done without the pre-K program.

And it's about children like Bobbie Scott, a kindergartner I visited in Knoxville. When Bobbie arrived at preschool her teacher told me she had difficulty focusing, that her fine-motor skills were weak. But thanks to the pre-K program, one year later Bobbie was reading books like "Sad Sam" and was a leader in her kindergarten class.

When it comes to expanding access to pre-K, I believe we're doing it right in Tennessee. This isn't just some new program the government has dreamed up and is forcing upon school districts. At its most basic, pre-K is a partnership. A financial partnership between the state and the local communities that the pre-K classrooms will serve. A partnership between the local government and members of its community in raising the local match. A partnership in preparing Tennessee's leaders of tomorrow, today.