A well-respected national organization recently gave Seattle’s preschool program a much deserved pat on the back.

The Seattle program has the highest quality among Pre-K programs in 40 large U.S. cities, according to a new report from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in partnership with nonprofit policy advocacy group CityHealth.

Seattle’s preschool program merits high marks for teacher quality and training, student-teacher ratios and class sizes, and ongoing efforts toward quality improvement. The program gets justified low marks, however, for participation.
This high-quality program is only worth the tax money spent to keep it open if it spends that money wisely, educating as many children as possible. About 1,500 students are enrolled in the program this year, just under an enrollment goal of more than 1,600 this school year. By the 2025-26 school year, the city plans to increase enrollment to 2,500 students.

The report also commends Seattle for offering mental-health and physical-health services at its pre-K sites. Few of the cities studied provide critical health screenings, including vision and hearing, to the children in the preschool programs, as Seattle does. Others are clearly missing an opportunity Seattle clearly recognizes to get children started on the right path toward academic success and good health.

Not surprisingly, the report dings Seattle’s excellent program for not reaching enough kids. The program enrolls just about 13 percent of Seattle’s 3-and-4-year-old population, which totals about 12,000 children. That’s something the voters intend to fix by passing an increase in the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Program levy last fall. More than half of the money from the levy — about $341.8 million — is aimed at expanding Seattle’s preschool program.

High-quality preschool has lasting social and economic impacts for both the children and their communities. For example, low-income children who participate in an academic pre-K program are more likely to begin kindergarten on par with their more affluent classmates, effectively eliminating the achievement gap for some.

Advertisement

A new study last year from the Harvard Graduate School of Education found children who attend high-quality early learning programs are less likely to be placed in special education, less likely to be retained in a grade and more likely to graduate from high school than peers who did not attend. The research supporting preschool as the best way to close the achievement gap is deep and wide.

Seattle’s preschool program deserves such commendation but should keep working to improve participation and reach as many eligible children as possible.

Editorial by The Seattle Times

Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.