Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

A few weeks ago, President Obama announced an ambitious agenda for early care and education. This plan would expand access to the high-quality early learning opportunities we know help put children on a path to success!

You know who is excited about this plan? KIDS (and their parents who understand just how important early learning experiences are to their future success)!

Next week, members of the Strong Start for Children – Building America’s Future campaign will be delivering notes to President Obama thanking him for prioritizing the needs of America’s youngest and most vulnerable children. Thank You notes have been pouring into our office and the offices of our campaign partners across the country, and we are getting very excited about getting them to the President.

The Nutty Professor was a landmark role for both Jerry Lewis and Eddie Murphy. As I’m sure you all know, the main plot line is driven by the scientific prowess of the professor, who develops a serum that transforms him from a science-loving nerd into a smooth-talking, lady-chasing hunk. The movie is a parody of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, fittingly for the comedians who have played the main character, it is hilarious. The original 1963 film was even selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

However, the recent transformation of a 16 year old girl, who “mixed some common household chemicals in a small 8 oz water bottle on the grounds of Bartow High School . . . [which] caused a small explosion that . . . produced some smoke, [but] . . . [n]o one was hurt and no damage was caused,” into a felon stretches the limits of my imagination. Unfortunately, this type of story is also culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant: the school-to-prison pipeline disproportionately affects youth of color, and women (especially women of color) continue to be underrepresented in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields – a topic even NASA has begun to address head-on.

I guess truth really is stranger than fiction.

According to reports, the student was taken into custody by a school resource officer (“SRO”) and charged with “possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device.” The student was subsequently expelled from school and will be charged as an adult.

Yesterday, the National Institute for Early Education Research released the latest version of its annual report, The State of Preschool 2012, and it contained very discouraging news. Between the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years, total state prekindergarten funding fell by $548 million and spending per child dropped by $442 (after adjusting for inflation). Enrollment in state prekindergarten had virtually stalled; as in the previous year, just 28 percent of four-year-olds and 4 percent of three-year-olds were served in state prekindergarten programs in 2011-2012. Only five states (Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Rhode Island) had prekindergarten programs that met all ten of NIEER’s quality standards benchmarks. Ten states—Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming—had no prekindergarten program in 2011-2012 (although just this month, Mississippi approved legislation establishing a prekindergarten program).

Given the importance of prekindergarten in giving children a strong start, clearly more needs to be done to ensure that adequate resources are provided to support prekindergarten, that strong standards are in place to provide children with high-quality learning experiences, and that prekindergarten is widely accessible to children who need it—particularly low- and moderate-income children.