Early Childhood

I've written in the past about PFA and the impact of Illinois's weak budget on its future. Thankfully, my children are out of the preschool age so CPS preschool options no longer concern me personally. However, I feel like CPS preschool remains one of the great unknowns (to parents) about CPS and, having spent four years as a PFA parent, the logistics of the program are interesting to me.

PFA began in 2006 with then-governor Rod Blagojevich. According to documents available at the time, PFA built on existing state PK and Head Start programs to bring "voluntary, high-quality preschool" to all preschool-aged Illinois children. At the time, it brought Illinois to the forefront of educational policy-setting. Blagojevich was really championing a cause put together into a platform in 2003 by the Ounce of Prevention Fund, Action for Children, and Voices for Illinois Children.

I do not have any experience with Action for Children or Voices for Illinois Children, but I have been impressed by the work coming out of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, and still remember the stats shared by Harriet Meyer during a TribNation event on Education in September 2010.

For my family, PFA has fulfilled the ideals outlined in the PFA FAQ: readiness for K, affordability, and exposure to children from different backgrounds. And so it's interesting how much the program has changed from the ideal espoused at its inception.

In January, at the PTA Advisory Council meeting, one of our speakers was Adrienne Stewart, with the CPS Office of Early Childhood Education. She shared that she's in a new position for the OECE, one of community engagement, ensuring that the PK voice is not silenced. Ms. Stewart has been a teacher, curriculum lead, and citywide manager for Head Start before landing in her current role. The OECE runs a few kinds of early childhood education programs, which are explained here on the CPS website.

Ms. Stewart explained that the Ready to Learn program is Mayor Emanuel's attempt to distribute funds from the ISBE's PFA funding to organizations and agencies outside CPS schools. Now that I'm writing it, I wonder if the RTL application should have been our first sign that CPS was going to close out more buildings that house PFA classrooms?

During her talk, I asked Ms. Stewart to explain both funding and admissions for CPS preschools, as these areas are particularly nebulous for parents. She said that PFA is a state-funded program that began with a block grant in 2003. At the time, she said, the state actually had more money than it knew what to do with and decided to invest it in opening PFA up to all students--not only those who are at-risk for disability, income, language, or other areas. PFA has/had a requirement that the program serve children of families "at-risk." Ms. Stewart said that for many communities, at-need and at-risk families overlap. Community Partnership Programs (CPP) are funded out of the PFA budget.

TBPK, she said, came out of Arne Duncan's desire to retain families within Chicago. He analyzed why families were leaving the city. And he wanted to give families who wanted to stay in Chicago and wanted preschool an option. It also had the effect of giving some families an easy entree into desirable CPS elementary schools, and introducing others into the idea that CPS could be made viable for their families, as CPSObsessed recently wrote.

Head Start is a federally funded program with age and income eligibility requirements. Similarly, Child-Parent Centers are funded from Title I, and are available to children age 3-5 years. Ms. Stewart noted that one of the initiatives that her office is considering is merging PFA and Head Start within some schools to accommodate different needs and funding sources.

In terms of admissions, Ms. Stewart clarified that there are no attendance boundaries for early childhood programs. We ran out of time before she answered when the application date closes for PFA admissions. She did say that CPS is expected to announce which programs will be certified under the RTL initiative by the end of March.

Finally, in terms of academics, she noted a plan to develop a framework for preschool curriculum across OECE locations.

PFA Redux

I sighed in relief in August, when Springfield's budgetary wrangling saved PFA. But the question remains: what will happen to PFA next year and beyond?

More PFA News

This morning, a friend told me that Ebinger and Edison Park canceled their PFA programs for Fall 2009. After a round of half-informed conjecture among 3 interested would-be PFA parents this morning, and a thorough review of posts on NPN about the subject, I called the Office of Early Childhood Education (773-553-2010) for the real scoop.

I spoke with a very nice man, Christopher Rosine, who directs the PFA program for CPS. He clearly (and very patiently, I might add!) answered all of my questions -- and there were a lot, as would be true of anyone with a vested interest and/or a journalistic background.

First, he said that it his office's goal to keep all of their current PFA programs open in the fall (which, for those of you keeping track at home, is in 6 weeks). He mentioned this point several times during our conversation.

He reiterated what I already knew: that the State Board of Education met on Tuesday and cut 32% of the funding stream for early childhood programs. But what I didn't know was that this cut affects not only PFA, but birth to 3 programs, and Early Intervention, the social service that evaluates and works to correct children's behavioral, speech, gross motor, fine motor and other skills delays. CPS and the Office of Early Childhood Education does not yet know what percentage of the Early Childhood Block Grant will be for Chicago's PFA program versus these other programs. If there are insufficient funds, they will either find resources within CPS to keep the program, or go outside for alternate funding options. Unfortunately, Mr. Rosine said, his office does not yet know what, if any, the shortfall will be, and therefore cannot go shopping for funds. He expects Springfield to notify his office within the next 2 weeks.

If they have enough funding, no programs will be cut. As it stands now, the program pays for a teacher and assistant for each school's PFA, plus room supplies and furnishings when a preschool first opens. If they do not have enough money, cannot reallocate funds from within CPS, or cannot find an outside source of funds, two things can happen:

1. Schools can choose to convert their programs to a 1/2 day tuition-based preschool. In this scenario, each school would administer the program at the school-level, collecting annual tuition of $3500-$4000 from parents. According to posts on NPN, Audubon is considering such a program; per Mrs. Stone, Disney II has said that it does not have the resources to do so.

2. They will cut PFA programs. Mr. Rosine said that they'll use the overall school community statistics to determine which programs to cut. Because the state has mandated that PFA serves at-risk for school failure children first, and a significant indicator of at-risk children is economic status, those programs that serve a higher percentage of economically disadvantaged children are more likely to retain their programs, whether they offer 8 PFA classes (like Belding) or 2 (like Disney II). His office uses the percentage of free and reduced lunch participants at a school to determine at-risk status. However, he said that a number of schools with a 100% free/reduced meal rate have already been converted to Head Start programs (which are federally funded -- and they have money) and they have plans to convert another 1000 slots to Head Start before the fall.

Fingers crossed that the Office of Early Education makes its goal for Fall 2009.