Preschool, one grant at a time
Editorial
Boston Globe, March 16, 2007

HOW CAN the state bring about universal preschool? Since its wallet is bare, Massachusetts has to start small and build. So the state is giving out $4.6 million in grants to early education and care programs that serve low-income children and asking them to experiment with ways to improve their programs.

It's a shrewd approach. Even if the state never builds universal preschool, the grants could still lead to lasting progress.

"It all comes down to having better trained and better educated staff," says Bruce Morrell, executive director of the New Bedford nonprofit PACE, People Acting in Community Endeavors. This program, which will receive a grant for its Head Start program, is one of 139 awards that were announced on Monday.

The Department of Early Education and Care is still calculating what the size of individual grants will be. The funding will go to a variety of programs statewide, including day-care centers, schools, and family providers.

Morrell says PACE will use its grant to help teachers earn bachelor's degrees, since research shows that children benefit from having better educated teachers. In the future, he'd also like to see more spots for children and higher salaries so programs can keep qualified teachers, instead of losing them to higher-paying public school jobs.

Programs can also use the grants for other purposes, including paying staff higher salaries and adding services for children and working parents.

Ann Reale, the state's commissioner of early education and care, says the goal of the grants is to "transform children's experiences." Although this $4.6 million pot is too small to finance grand experiments, programs could plant seeds that might eventually sprout into innovations. For example, colleges could help teachers to earn four-year degrees by offering college courses in day-care centers.

Head Start programs set creative examples of how other preschool programs could guide parents up the educational ladder. Morrell says he has watched a mother go from being a welfare recipient to a lead teacher. Linking more preschool programs to adult job development could increase the teaching pool and the economic well-being of families.

The state is also asking programs to measure the impact of grant-funded improvements -- a reasonable way to keep the focus on children, inform policy makers, and guide future experiments.

Grants can be used to buy the computers or software needed to do assessments, and the state will provide training and support. The assessments would not and should not be a junior MCAS, but rather a look at whether children are ready for school, based on their literacy, social, and emotional skills.

While funding is limited, these grants could still pay off if they produce rich insights.