蜜桃影视

Enrollment in state-funded preschool programs has stagnated, and the federal grants that have helped expand them in recent years are ending, according to a new report.

Overall, about one-third of the country鈥檚 4-year-olds and less than 6 percent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in state-funded programs in the 2017-18 school year, according to the most recent State of Preschool Yearbook, an annual report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

Those numbers represent small increases from the previous year, with 鈥渕uch of the increase鈥� in enrollment of 4-year-olds coming from federal Preschool Development Grants, the report found. Those federal funds, which went to 18 states, are coming to an end this year; the grants were announced in December 2014 and paid out over four years.

About 56,000 4-year-olds attend programs either totally or partially supported by the federal grants, according to the report.

鈥淭hose grants go away this year … States are going to have to find a way to fill that budget hole,鈥� Steven Barnett, co-director of the institute, said on a webinar with reporters Tuesday.

About half of the 18 states that received the grants, which totaled $244 million last year, have plans to sustain the funding through other sources, he said.

Ten states served more than 50 percent of 4-year-olds, and only four (Vermont, Oklahoma, Florida and the District of Columbia) served more than 70 percent.

Eleven states served fewer than 5 percent of their 4-year-olds, including six states that had no pre-K programs meeting NIEER鈥檚 benchmarks.

Only Vermont and the District of Columbia enrolled more than half of 3-year-olds. Many states don鈥檛 serve any.

At the current enrollment expansion rate, it would take 75 years to get 70 percent of 4-year-olds across the nation enrolled in state-funded pre-K programs, and 175 years to enroll the equivalent amount of 3-year-olds, Barnett said on the call.

Much like enrollment has largely stalled, funding also isn鈥檛 keeping pace, with the average spent per child in preschool coming in at $5,170, a small decrease per child when adjusted for inflation.

鈥淎djusting for inflation, we鈥檝e seen real spending per child decline the last two years. Even though spending鈥檚 been up some, it鈥檚 not keeping pace with even that slow increase in enrollment,鈥� Barnett said.

Though about a third of students nationally are enrolled in pre-K, at an average cost of about $5,000 a year, the figures vary dramatically from state to state: the District of Columbia spends more than $17,000 per student, while North Dakota spends less than $1,000.

That disparity can also influence teacher pay and benefits, a facet of pre-K the group highlighted this year: Although 25 states require teachers to hold at least a bachelor鈥檚 degree, only four states require those teachers to be paid on the same salary schedule as kindergarten to third-grade teachers.

The gaps between pre-K teachers and those who teach slightly older children is as much as $20,000 to $30,000 in some states.

NIEER has released the report annually since 2002; last year鈥檚 report celebrated the increase in the number of students enrolled since tracking began but raised concerns about program quality.

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