Atomic City Talk

Oak Ridge had an excellent opportunity yesterday, when Gov. Bredesen came to the Oak Ridge Preschool to participate in a roundtable discussion with a group of parents, teachers, a business representative, administrators and a couple of local officials. The event was even picked up by the Tennessean this morning.

Because our preschool has been in operation for 40 years, we have a long history of success with a program that Bredesen is promoting statewide. We know that dollars invested in a quality preschool program have a high rate of return in subsequent years, because later interventions are more expensive and less effective.

It was really nice to have the Governor's ear in a very effective meeting yesterday. Now, he knows what we have done and what we need to do; likewise, we learned what we can to do help persuade some of the nonbelievers in the Legislature.

I don't think non-believers are the problem NM. I am a believer in the program. The problem is the pragmatists that realize in the current budget situation adding additional programs, while cutting others i.e. CPS (also a vital program), is not a good idea. I seldom disagree with this Governor, I support his Pre-K initiative, but the time is not right. He has become a victim of a slowing economy with a budget dependent upon consumerism and a loss of revenue. Sad.

What is CPS?

Child Protective Services, which is a division of the Department of Children's services. They're facing a layoff of 160 people due to a loss of federal revenues (flowing through the state) for that purpose.

Jacket, I understand the revenue problem at the State level, and my statement of needing to persuade the nonbelievers isn't necessarily related to this year's budget crunch. There are some Republicans in the Legislature -- not all, but some -- who are under the mistaken impression that Pre-K is "publicly funded day care." Those are the "nonbelievers" I'm referencing.

Done properly (with an actual curriculum aligned to state standards, certified teachers, etc.), Pre-K is much, much more than "day care." It is education with a high return on the investment.

They'd be reassigned to another (overworked) case manager, who probably wouldn't be able to see them as often and might allow bad situations to slip through the cracks.

Oh and believe me, they slip through the cracks.

I thoroughly support Pre-K, the expansion of such though at this juncture is not fiscally responsible. That being said, The Republicans that are non-believer's ought to have a child in one of these Pre-K classrooms. I know one staunch Republican who's mind was changed and is eternally grateful for this program. The fuss is not if to expand in my opinion, but when.

What kind of stats are available on the success rates you reference of children who went through the OR program compared to those who haven't?

We have to be careful with statistics as unspecified as that. For just one example, if there hasn't been care to correct for family environment the numbers might be saying that those parents who are more educationally motivated might be the ones that get their kids in more than not.

We have some stats regarding how children who attended preschool compare with children who did not, but one of the Governor's suggestions was that we delve into the records a bit more to come up with better stats -- i.e., children with identified risk factors who attended preschool, versus those in the same groups who did not.

The risk factors vary, from family income to speech, hearing, or visual impairments, to learning disabilities. It can also include students for whom English is a second language. I think that we're planning to further study the tracking of these students to come up with more useful data.

What we do know from the existing data is that students with risk factors can be brought up to at least the same level as students with no risk factors by the beginning of kindergarten. That's significant by itself, but we do need both.

Admittance into the preschool is based upon the results of screening for risk factors. The preschool actively works with other agencies to try to identify these children, not necessarily waiting for the parents to show up and sign them up. Students are taken on a need-based selection, so there are always students whose parents want them enrolled that we don't currently have room for.