Texas should follow Fort Worth on pre-K

As state legislators wrestle with how to provide money for more pre-kindergarten classes, the Fort Worth school district is moving forward with a groundbreaking decision to offer a full-day education program for all 4-year-olds.

On Friday morning, the district will break ground in a ceremony signaling the start of construction to add pre-K classrooms at 16 school sites to accommodate all 4-year-old students in the system.

The Fort Worth projects get underway while the Legislature takes up bills to add more funding — but not enough dollars — for early childhood education, an issue that Gov. Greg Abbott made a hallmark of his election campaign.

Current proposals under consideration in Austin don’t include “universal” preschool (meaning for every child) or mandatory full-day programs for students who now qualify for state-supported pre-K. Currently, Texas has half-day programs for students who are low-income, English-learning, foster children or from military families.

House Bill 4 would grant school districts an extra $1,300 per student if they meet certain guidelines for curriculum, teacher certification, accountability measurements and parental engagement.

In the Fort Worth school district, which was already serving about 4,000 pre-K students, voters approved a capital improvement bond issue in 2013 that will expand its pre-K program to a universal one, capable of serving all students in the district in that age group.

A total of 71 new classrooms are being added at the 16 sites, with a construction cost of $21 million, said Barbara Griffith, senior communications officer for the district.

Based on the construction schedule, with projected completion by the fall of 2016, “the number of children we will serve is expected to be at the number we projected, 7,000,” Griffith told the Star-Telegram Editorial Board.

San Antonio, through a city initiative to increase the sales tax by one-eighth of a cent, is the other large Texas urban district that has implemented universal full-day pre-K.

The governor and legislators are aware that high-quality early education is an important factor in a student’s educational success.

And although some additional funding is better than none, at some point the state needs to follow the lead of Fort Worth and San Antonio to ensure that all kids have access to full-day pre-kindergarten.

This story was originally published March 26, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Texas should follow Fort Worth on pre-K."