Supporting pre-k and early childhood education in Texas is important to the future of the state. There isn’t a pre-k study out there that hasn’t shown a direct correlation between investment in high quality pre-k programs and dramatic improvements in   economic development.  

1. Quality Public Pre-K:
Investing in Our
Future Workforce

2. Last year, in an effort to balance
the state budget, the Texas
legislature made unprecedented cuts
to public education. As a result,
funding for high quality full day
pre-k programs decreased by $223
million.

3. Pre-k programs have felt these
drastic cuts in the form of increased
class size, fewer teacher aides,
fewer inclusion and special ed staff,
and reduced instructional time.

4. Cutting funding for high quality pre-
k programs will impact future
economic development at a local
level.

5. There isn’t a pre-k study out
there that hasn’t shown a direct
correlation between investment in
high quality pre-k programs and
dramatic improvements in
economic development.

6. How Pre-K Programs Promote
Economic Development:
! Higher per capita earnings gained by increasing adult
labor force in place of child participants
! Former child participants stay in the same state or metro
area as adults and contribute in a higher quality way to
the local workforce than they did as children
! Short-term benefits: increases in property values
! Long-term benefits: stronger labor supply
! Early childhood programs have the most rigorous evidence
of large effects per dollar invested
Source: Timothy J. Bartik, Senior Economist, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Presentation to National Business
Leader Summit on Early Childhood Investment, Boston, Massachusetts.

7. Other Impacts of Early Childhood Education
Investments on Economic Productivity and
Decreased Cost to Government:
! fewer special education referrals and less grade repetition
! higher rates of high school graduation
! fewer behavioral problems and delinquency
! higher employment earnings
! less welfare dependency
! less smoking, drug use, and depression
! reduced schooling costs, social services costs, crime costs, and
healthcare costs
! less teen pregnancy and smoking
Source: Barnett, W. S. (2002) Early childhood education. In A. Molnar (Ed.) School reform proposals: The research evidence
(pp.1-26). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

8. The Bush study at Texas A&M found
that, for every dollar spent on
quality full day pre-k, there’s a
350% return on investment.

9. So, how is it a good idea to
cut their funding?

10. Pre-k programs suffer from the
misperception that what they provide
amounts to little more than glorified
babysitting, and therefore they
aren’t as important as other public
school programs.

11. Perception?

12. To the untrained eye, what happens
in pre-k looks a lot like play. As
well it should, because
play is the work of a young child.
But the play is all intentional and
well-planned.

13. Take the Lion Lane School in
Spring Branch ISD...

14. According to Sharee Cantrell, the
school’s director, Texas pre-k
programs have evolved over the past
decade as assessment data showed
that children were capable of
absorbing more information in a
play-based environment than
previously thought.

15. Pre-K programs vary.
But those, like Lion Lane, led by teachers
with advanced degrees in early childhood
education, base their instruction on each
child’s developmental stage. Lessons are
geared within a structured curriculum to
the next step for each child.
Kids are never at desks filling out
workbooks, but they are always learning.

16. When Spring Branch ISD opened full
day pre-k centers 11 years ago, they
had two goals in mind:
(1) to show kids that learning at school
is fun; and
(2) to focus on their social and
emotional development.

17. By the middle of the year, the kids
had learned ALL of their letters and
sounds without any direct instruction
-- just lots of exposure to good
reading, writing, play and modeling.

18. Kids absorbed the information in a
natural setting. Now Spring Branch
ISD has a 9-week curriculum for
each subject matter. And, because
it’s a full-day program, students
have time to work on projects in the
afternoon as an authentic
application of the reading and
writing skills they’ve learned
in the morning.

19. “Kids are able to do a lot more than
we give them credit for. It’s
amazing how quickly they can pick
up on things if you let them.”
Sharee Cantrell,
Director (Principal) of The Lion Lane School