Low funds force cuts in learning program
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A state preschool and family-services program for Washington's neediest children will cut more than 1,000 spaces statewide during the next two years, a decision program operators say they felt forced to make after years of stagnant state funding.
The Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) is the state's version of Head Start, a federal program that offers preschool and intensive family support to the most impoverished children.
Advocates of early-childhood education charge that state lawmakers are ignoring the importance of high-quality preschool even as they push tougher academic standards and tests for primary- and secondary-school students.
"All the indicators are programs like this make a huge difference. So why, why, would we defund this at a time when WASL scores indicate we already have high numbers of fourth-graders not passing the tests?" asked Elizabeth Bonbright Thompson, executive director of the state Child Care Resource & Referral Network.
"This is an alarming trend that has implications all the way down the line."
About 15 percent of the program's 6,857 slots are expected to be eliminated during the next two years. Some districts and agencies that run the programs terminated them at the end of the school year last month. Others say the effect will be felt next fall.
State officials say broad political support remains for ECEAP, but it must compete with myriad other needs. The new state budget basically maintains funding for the program, even while other human services took deep cuts, said Robin Zukoski, who advises Gov. Gary Locke on child-care and preschool issues.
To stay in business, ECEAP already has sliced class days and hours, time for staff planning and home visits, and increased the caseloads of family social workers, cuts that have left the program "marginalized to death," Zukoski said.
State officials and ECEAP operators feared the program might wind up as "glorified child care, which isn't the goal," said Garrison Kurtz, who oversees ECEAP. So they jointly agreed to cut slots rather than watch the program's quality suffer.
The goal is to benefit fewer children with a richer, more comprehensive ECEAP, with a target of spending $6,500 per child each school year, up from about $4,000 now, Kurtz said.
The state estimates 1,173 families will lose the services ECEAP offers: a half-day preschool plus comprehensive family-support services and everything from mental-health screening to nutrition services. (The number of families affected is higher than the spaces being cut because of turnover in the families enrolled in the program.)
The cutbacks in slots are significant for several reasons, advocates say:
• The program serves children who may be most at risk for serious academic, behavioral and health problems later in life.
Studies of Head Start and ECEAP say that $1 spent on the programs now saves $7 later by reducing rates of special-education placement, teen pregnancy, welfare use and incarceration, according to research provided by the state.
• The rising requirements of education reform have made even kindergarten more academic, so children entering school without a good academic foundation risk being left behind. Research correlates low test scores with lower family incomes.
• Together, ECEAP and Head Start serve less than 60 percent of the state's total eligible population of 3- and 4-year-olds. In King County, the programs serve about 28 percent of the eligible children, with long waiting lists in some areas, particularly South King County.
The state launched ECEAP as a pilot program in 1985. Today, it has an annual budget of $31 million.
A long-term state study of ECEAP says children leave the program more independent and outgoing, have fewer behavior problems and show academic gains.
Despite a series of small budget increases over the years, ECEAP funding has not kept pace with the cost of doing business. Meanwhile, federal funding for Head Start, which provides more than 12,000 slots in the state, has increased dramatically; ECEAP projects now receive just over half as much as Head Start programs to do virtually the same thing.
The flash point this year was the teacher-pay initiative that mandated cost-of-living raises for teachers. Many ECEAP teachers are school-district employees eligible for the raises, but ECEAP doesn't receive additional state money to pay for them because the state doesn't define it as "basic education."
That prompted some soul-searching among ECEAP leaders.
"We didn't want to run a program that pretends to be a high-quality, intensive program when it really isn't," said Wendy Roedell of the Puget Sound Educational Service District.
Some agencies have chosen to eliminate rather than trim their programs. The Denise Louie Education Center, with sites in the Chinatown International District and on Beacon Hill, will drop to 49 spaces next fall from 67 but still will operate $65,000 in the red, said executive director Janice Yee. There is talk of closing the program next year.
"To take it away seems ridiculous," said lead teacher Kris Jones. "These are the kids we most need to reach, and a lot of these families will have nowhere else to go."
Jolayne Houtz can be reached at 206-464-3122.