This WA pre-K program is hugely popular — and in peril

Part 4 of the "Equity or Bust: Are Ontario's Public Schools a Model for Pennsylvania" Series: Ontario is widely lauded for its education system. But, like Pennsylvania, evidence in Toronto suggests that Ontario has struggled to close achievement gaps between historically underserved minorities and their peers. Many believe universal pre-K will prove to be the decisive factor in bridging that gap.

Preparing the young for elementary education is a priority to nurture reading and social skills. For 16 years, Tulsa Oklahoma has instituted a state funded preschool, staffed with teachers trained in early education. Tulsa’s Pre-K initiative has shown that their children are more prepared for literacy skills and math; however, maintaining the positive results is a long-term challenge.

Last school year, the Maine Department of Education began offering speech, physical, and occupational therapy to three- to five-year-olds in 17 public school districts, with plans to roll out the services for preschoolers in 34 more. So far, the state has been able to provide services to all eligible students in that age range, totaling more than 400.

The Alternative Education Association provides students with more individualized, dynamic educational opportunities, combatting the disappointment with the current education system. Since forming, the Association has established a preschool, kindergarten, and primary school for young students in the area.

Outdoor schools are growing in popularity, but don't often reflect the diverse communities they serve. Two outdoor schools, one in New Mexico and the other in Washington state, are implementing programs and strategies to address the root of this systemic issue. Tiny Trees Preschool in Seattle has found success through its Redefining The Outdoors program, which gets more families of color involved in the outdoors, and by offering tuition assistance to families of color and those facing economic hardships.

Part 1 of the "Equity or Bust: Are Ontario's Public Schools a Model for Pennsylvania" Series: Ontario has become widely lauded for its education system, celebrated for both high performance and relatively smaller achievement gaps between wealthy and poor students, thanks to the concept of "equity." This manifests, in essence, as more funding per-pupil to the school boards that serve students who face the greatest obstacles. The model contrasts starkly to the school system in Pennsylvania, regarded as "the most inequitable in the nation.”

Missing days at school, even when excusable, starts children on a pattern of falling behind. A new U.S. department of education initiative has districts tracking all absences, even in kindergarten, to identify and help kids with chronic absenteeism sooner.

One prong of Mississippi's approach to improving literacy has been to retain, or hold back, third-grade students who don't meet reading benchmarks on state language arts assessments. The state has seen scores improve among younger students, but experts caution that retention should be combined with other interventions, such as improving the reading curriculum and providing more literacy training for teachers, to truly have an impact.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Massachusetts has invested in rebuilding its child care system by distributing grant funding to help improve employee compensation and increasing budget allocations for early childhood education, which has helped the state create more than 45,000 new child care slots. However, Massachusetts families still struggle to afford child care, even as the capacity of providers improves.

This school year, Kentucky implemented its new ban on cell phones during the school day. Though schools are enforcing the ban in different ways, with some having students secure phones in Yondr pouches or even mailboxes and others simply requiring students to keep them out of sight, administrators report that violations of the policy are starting to decrease as school communities get used to the new culture around phones.