Pre-K would cost Philly $60M per year
Philadelphia should make prekindergarten available to every 3- and 4-year-old, at a cost to the city of $60 million annually, a special city commission urged in a report released Tuesday.
Philadelphia should make prekindergarten available to every 3- and 4-year-old, at a cost to the city of $60 million annually, a special city commission urged in a report released Tuesday.
With 42,000 city children in that age group, pre-K is a tall and costly order. The $60 million tab assumes an unspecified amount of support from the philanthropies and businesses.
Mayor Kenney has made universal pre-K one of the priorities of his administration, vowing to include new funding beginning with his first budget, to be introduced in early March.
City voters in May approved creation of the Commission on Universal Pre-Kindergarten, which was composed of 16 early childhood experts, current pre-K providers, government officials, and others.
The commission recommended that the city develop over several years a pre-K structure that would use the Philadelphia School District and nonprofit and private providers throughout the city. The providers could operate out of schools, centers, or homes, but would have to meet standards and be monitored.
About 19,000 Philadelphia 3- and 4-year-olds now either attend no preschool at all, or are in early childhood programs that don't meet the state's basic standards for quality. About 14,000 children, however, are already in publicly funded, quality pre-K programs.
Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, a commission member, said in a statement that "there should be no doubt that expanding quality pre-K is essential to improving our schools and supporting our working families and their children. It is without a doubt one element towards ending the cycle of poverty in Philadelphia."
Under the system recommended by the commission, children living in poverty, those with special needs, and English-language learners would get first crack at pre-K seats. The programs would be affordable to all families, and would be free or close to free for the neediest.
To make the math work, providers would need to blend funding streams, marrying state, city, and even federal funds to cover the cost of a child's education.
Beyond the cost and political viability questions, there are other barriers, the commission acknowledged. Many of the city's current providers are small businesses operating on the slimmest of margins, often without the administrative capacity to handle complicated and mixed funding streams.
There aren't now enough quality seats or teachers, either.
But experts say pre-K would make a difference not just to the struggling school system, but also to the city as a whole.
"Children benefit greatly from quality early learning opportunities, and those benefits ripple through our workforce, economy, and communities," the report's authors said.
Council formally received the 56-page report at a Tuesday afternoon meeting at City Hall, where commission cochair Sharon Easterling told the group that "the hard work of figuring out how we will pay for this is yet to come."
Council President Darrell L. Clarke, through his spokeswoman, declined to comment on the report, saying he had yet to review it.
"How are we going to pay for it? I don't know," Councilman William K. Greenlee said. "The devil is in the details. And the real devil is the money."
The report is the first step in what will certainly be a long process. Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on Feb. 22, with community meetings to follow. A final report is slated to be issued April 15.
kgraham@phillynews.com 215-854-5146 @newskag