Tennessee's pre-K earns high marks again
Report commends class size, teachers, academic standards

From The Tennessean

By Natalia Mielczarek
Staff Writer

March 14, 2007 - For the second consecutive year, Tennessee has been dubbed a national leader in offering and sustaining a high-quality pre-K program funded by state dollars, a federal study released today says.

The high marks also commend the state for spending about $570 more per student than the national average, upholding solid academic standards, hiring high-quality teachers and keeping the classes small.

The study, called 2006 Preschool Yearbook, was prepared by the National Institute for Early Education Research, a unit of the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Zachary Lee's pre-K class at Metro's Alex Green Elementary is a good example, his mom, Lori Lee, said.

"I've seen him grow a lot. I've been a stay-at-home mom, and he's my youngest son, so I've seen him come out of his shell around others at school," Lee said. "If he didn't go to pre-K, I don't think he'd be ready for kindergarten."

Tennessee scores a 9

So far, Tennessee has funneled $70 million in the past two years into new pre-K classrooms and continued to provide $10 million each year to fund 148 pre-K classrooms from its pilot program.

And Gov. Phil Bredesen said he wants to put in $25 million more to expand the state-funded pre-K program, which serves about 13,000 kids.

Twelve states didn't offer a state-funded preschool program last year, the study shows. Those that did were graded on a set of benchmarks, including teacher quality, academic standards and support services offered to parents.

Alabama and North Carolina scored a perfect 10. Tennessee was among six states that got a 9, missing a requirement that assistant teachers have a child development associate's degree before being hired. New legislation requires that they hold that degree or are working toward it, state education officials said.

The high score didn't surprise Sara Shortcutt, who teaches pre-K at Carroll-Oakland Elementary School in Wilson County.

"The big difference is that we have certified teachers," she said. "I believe in it because I've seen children be able to interact with one another who haven't been able to do that, children learn to be independent, learn how to go to school."

Steven Barnett, director of the Rutgers program, said Tennessee is even more notable because it is building a pre-K program quickly and sustaining quality. Many of the exemplary states, such as Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina, are in the South, he said.

"I think it is interesting that Southern governors in particular have been taking the lead in early child education," Barnett said. "I don't really know why."

Bredesen has the answer for Tennessee.

"I'm a businessman at heart, and I like to look at the return on investment, and we just tried to ask some questions, which are: 'OK, if you put another dollar in education, where do you get the most use out of it?' " he said Tuesday.

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Gov. Phil Bredesen talked to Tennessean reporter Natalia Mielczarek on Tuesday about the pre-K program and the state's high ranking in a national study of such initiatives. Here are excerpts from what Bredesen said:

"It's so easy in education to go chasing after the latest sparkly thing. When you have people who study this stuff and you look at the studies, I don't think there's a better place or a fairer place to put money in education than pre-K."

"We earned the high score. We've put a lot of money behind our pre-K program, we've expanded it dramatically, and we've stayed true to the notion of having a very professional program using certified teachers and properly funded. They're recognizing the reality here, and I'm proud of what's been accomplished."

"We're doing it with a very high-quality program. The temptation for some people was to: 'Let's open more classrooms; We can afford to do that because we won't hire certified teachers everywhere.' And we said: 'No, let's just do it right.' "

"The decision to not try to do it in one year but grow this program over the course of six years was a very good decision. It led us to hire appropriate teachers, it led the school districts to bring these things on their own pace."

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