蜜桃影视

The abrupt announcement last week that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t seeking re-election has raised questions about whether his sprawling initiative to implement free, universal pre-K will survive once he’s left office.

Emanuel, who continues to champion the program’s four-year rollout, is confident it will continue under the next mayor. Early education’s momentum, combined with a favorable political climate and the past year鈥檚 foundational work, guarantee its success, he told 蜜桃影视.

“I believe, mark my words, that every [candidate]” will get the question, “Are you going to fulfill the next three years of universal, full-day pre-K?” Emanuel said. “And I guarantee you that all of them are going to say ‘Yes.’ Because that’s what the public wants. … It’s what our kids need.”

But not all ed-watchers are as optimistic as Emanuel. While it’s unlikely a successor would oppose free pre-K outright, some education pundits said that at a time of fiscal strain, a post-Rahm mayor may question the expansion’s $175 million annual price tag. The city’s behemoth school district, Chicago Public Schools, is already spread thin, shouldering , , and a half-empty .

“Are they going to make sure $175 million goes to make this happen versus all the other huge financial demands that there will be?” asked Geoffrey Nagle, president and CEO of the Erikson Institute in Chicago. “That remains to be seen.”

Shoes to fill

In late May, Emanuel introduced a plan to roll out universal pre-K 鈥� in this case, preschool that’s free and eligible for all 鈥� with the goal of serving 24,000 4-year-olds annually by fall 2021. It would more than double the city鈥檚 pre-rollout capacity of about 11,000 kids during 2017-18, according to the mayor鈥檚 office.

Officials expect to have space for more than 3,700 kids to enter full-day pre-K this year. This first phase targets children from households making about $46,000 or less a year.

Jump-starting students鈥� education with pre-K 鈥渋s Chicago鈥檚 model,鈥� Emanuel said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the model we set.鈥�

The program was the logical next step for a mayor who considers education an integral part of his legacy. Emanuel lengthened the city’s school day, instituted , and has 聽capacity for full-day, public pre-K by about 75 percent during his seven-year tenure.

Chicago鈥檚 push for early education is playing out against a national backdrop of for pre-K and research touting its importance. Quality pre-K boosts kindergarten preparedness, shrinks , increases high school , and is considered a good investment, experts say.

Still, free universal programs are less common than those targeted only at low-income students, as they require sustainable funding streams and strong advocates. For Chicago, it will cost $175 million a year by 2021 鈥� on top of the more than $320 million the city already invests in students from birth to 5 years old, according to the mayor’s office.

Funding stems from state allocations and grants, federal Head Start dollars, and appropriations from the city and Chicago Public Schools鈥� (CPS) budgets. The expansion is also part of CPS’s plan.

A good universal system means having quality, “comprehensive services … having enough support personnel like teacher coaches [and] professional development for teachers,” said Theresa Hawley, senior vice president for policy and innovation for Illinois Action for Children. The organization worked with the city on an eight-month cost study for the program. “We helped them figure out how much it was really going to cost to do this initiative right.”

Only and a smattering of cities, such as New York and Washington, D.C., have adopted universal programs. (There are often applications and waiting lists, however, and not every child聽gets a spot.)

With programs of this scale, “you need public leaders” fighting for it, said Nagle of Chicago鈥檚 Erikson Institute. So for him and other education pundits, Emanuel’s announcement last week was 鈥渟hocking.”

“From where I sit in early childhood, it was clear to me that he was planning to be the mayor to see [universal pre-K] through,” he said.

Emanuel wrote in a that he is departing for personal reasons, calling his position “the job of a lifetime, but … not a job for a lifetime.” He’ll be mayor through next May.

Chicago’s investment in early education leaves advocates hopeful that his successor will be a pre-K proponent. A handful of contenders with links to education have emerged so far in Chicago’s聽, including Paul Vallas, a prior Chicago superintendent; Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association; and Neal S谩les-Griffin,聽who teaches聽at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

With Emanuel out of the race, the “whole conversation” shifts, Nagle said. People will now have to address the future of pre-K.

“The campaign so far [had] been everyone against Emanuel,” he said, adding that now, candidates are 鈥済oing to really have to talk about the issues.”

A ‘woefully underfunded’ school system

During Emanuel鈥檚 tenure, CPS has been lauded for its fast-growing . It’s also been widely criticized for its poor financial health.

The district is “woefully underfunded for K-12,” Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, told 蜜桃影视. “They need [at-risk student] interventions; they聽.”

While the district’s budget did increase this year, the Chicago Tribune reported that CPS is facing聽 and a half-empty teacher pension fund. CPS has also weathered past reports of聽聽and a sex abuse scandal that prompted the creation of聽.

This reality makes pundits like Bruce Atchison, principal of early learning initiatives at the Education Commission of the States, wonder whether universal pre-K will fall victim to a tug-of-war for resources.

Relying on various funding streams can make programs “more vulnerable” than ones that have a dedicated, publicly backed source, he told 蜜桃影视. He cited , where early education is on the up-and-up after an approved ballot initiative enabled a sales tax increase to foot the bill for the city’s pre-K program.

“If voters approve something, it’s more than likely going to be more sustainable than a piecemeal approach,” he said.

For budget expert Martire, one new pre-K revenue source could prove particularly troubling: Last year’s state , which prompted the state to start pumping more money annually into Illinois’s neediest districts (including CPS, where more than three-quarters of the student population are聽). About came to Chicago this year as a result 鈥� $20 million of which was channeled toward the universal pre-K program, according to the mayor’s office.

That $60 million “is really designed to cover鈥� K-12 improvements, Martire said. But Illinois school districts largely control how they spend their money.

Emanuel has also been known to dedicate “a larger portion of local resources to early education than previous mayors have,鈥� Hawley noted. The city鈥檚 budget allocated more than $15 million to early childhood this year. “So it’s up to advocates to keep the pressure on whoever is in City Hall to continue to invest.”

One form of funding that is fairly sound, Martire and Hawley agreed, is state block grants. Funding for a statewide early education block grant, for example, “is $200 million larger than it was four years ago,” Hawley said. This block grant provided the Windy City with an additional $18.5 million in funding this year.

Emanuel emphasized that there are state powerhouses in early education’s corner, such as Senate President John Cullerton, who should keep the money flowing. And, he added, state funding would likely increase if Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker beats Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner in November.

Pritzker’s namesake foundation led a back in 2014 to expand Chicago’s pre-K programs. (Pritzker has a as of Thursday.)

‘This is the foundational year’

Emanuel sidestepped concerns that he鈥檚 abandoning universal pre-K midstream. There are many other things, he said, that he also won’t see to the end.

“I set a goal [for 2020] that to graduate high school, ,” he said as an example. “I’m not going to be here for that. But the system is being implemented to achieve that.”

The mayor and his team are approaching the rollout鈥檚 first year with a similar mindset: They call it the “foundational year.” A core element of the 2018-19 phase is building the necessary infrastructure to expand the program 鈥� including about this fall, five early learning centers, and a plan to determine which areas need the rollout the most, and when.

“Over the next eight months, I will be building out the physical capacity to handle” the increase in kids, Emanuel said. “And once that [infrastructure is] built … you can’t leave those schoolrooms empty.” (Nonetheless, other district building efforts have spurred criticism amid and thousands of empty seats 鈥� especially at the .)

Samantha Aigner-Treworgy, Emanuel’s chief of early learning, added that the city is also focused on providing professional development to pre-K teachers who are transitioning from teaching part-time to full-time classes. About 3,500 of the new full-day openings the city plans to create are converted over from part-time.

Whether it’s helping educators design a full-day curriculum or “supporting schools to be able to provide breaks and lunches and prep periods … we’ve really been working hard with schools [and community providers] to make sure that full day is implemented well,鈥� she told 蜜桃影视.

Meanwhile, advocates like Hawley and Nagle said they intend to spend the coming months urging future mayoral candidates to “publicly declare that they will absolutely commit now to making [universal pre-K] happen.”

“Lots of other issues are being brought鈥� to leaders鈥� attention, Nagle said. “We’ve got to fight to make this the number one priority.”

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.