Snyder urges lawmakers to back more early ed funding | Crain's Detroit Business
Now he is proposing increasing spending on Great Start preschool programs by 60 percent in the budget he proposed earlier this year that is working its way through the legislative process.
The program is a state-funded effort to ensure poor or disadvantaged children are ready to begin attending school when the time comes.
It began as a pilot program in 1985.
"We're really taking care of kids that wouldn't have the resources otherwise to get in a program," he said.
The investment would increase payments to preschool providers and create openings for 16,000 more children.
He is also proposing another $65 million for these programs in 2015, bringing the total two-year increased investment in early childhood education to $130 million.
Such an investment is not an easy sell, and Republicans in the House and Senate have already been tinkering with his proposal by either lowering the amount of investment or changing who could qualify for the program.
Detractors often point to studies they say show that any gains made from early childhood education disappear within a few years once kids are in school with students who didn't go through those programs.
2 comments:
The State of Michigan started including all Day Care Providers into Great Start sometime last fall, so the numbers may not be what you think of as pre-school.
Starting this summer, Great Start is going to attempt to categorize the Day Care Providers in terms of how much "education" they provide. You can guess where this is going.
Thomas,
I'll bet you and I agree.
Why is it that when we give the educational world more money to "fix" a problem it always seems to get worse?
Why has the expansion of "early" education led to reduced graduates and fewer grads understanding reedin' rittin' and nummers?
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