A broad new federal initiative aimed at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5 is tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week.
With nearly a third of Neshoba County students dropping out of school, such an initiative could be hugely beneficial to communities such as ours.
Known as the Early Learning Challenge Fund, the initiative would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
Since the Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall and President Barack Obama will likely sign a bill because he proposed the Challenge Fund during the presidential campaign, Mississippi educators should begin developing a plan to improve standards, training and oversight of the early education programs.
The current array of programs serving young children and their families nationwide is a hodgepodge of efforts with little coordination or coherence.
Financing comes from a shifting mix of private, local, state and federal money. Programs are run out of storefronts and churches, homes and Head Start centers, public schools and other facilities. Quality is uneven, with some offering stimulating activities, play and instruction but others providing little more than a room and a television.
Oversight varies by state, but most lack any early childhood structure analogous to the state and local boards of education that govern public schools. A result is that poor children, even many who have access to government-financed early care or learning programs, tend to enter kindergarten less prepared for school than those with wealthier parents.
Low reading scores among poor black children here confirm the trend, said Leroy Clemons, president of the Neshoba County chapter of the NAACP.
"I agree it needs to be reformed," he said. "The system we have now doesn't work."
For example, last year 73 percent of the children in the third grade at Philadelphia elementary scored below proficient in reading, which puts them in a sub category with some of the poorest performing Delta schools.
"This is where we're losing our children in the early stages," Clemons said.
To qualify for grants, states would have to demonstrate that they have established or improved what the bill calls a "governance structure" for their networks of child care centers and prekindergarten programs.
Although the departments of Education and Health and Human Services would jointly administer the Challenge Fund, states should be given great latitude to compete to develop the best programs.
In order to attract higher-skill, higher-paying jobs, reading scores here must be improved and the dropout rate reduced.
State leaders should begin now developing a plan to improve standards, training and oversight of the early education programs.
