WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Early learning counts

Dear Neighbor,

This week, the 64th Legislative session was gaveled to order. This session will be both exciting and challenging – lots of problems to tackle.

 Legislative Support ServicesOver the next few months you’ll hear a lot of talk about budgets and McCleary – referring to the Supreme Court mandate that says our state must invest more money in basic education. I believe we should invest more in our K-12 schools. But the truth is, if we want our children to succeed, we need to focus on early learning and higher education too. If we want to give all Washington’s children the chance to succeed then we need to invest in children so they are prepared for kindergarten and then can graduate high school and prepare for a career.

As Chair of the Early Learning & Human Services Committee, one of my top priorities is to ensure that our youngest learners get off to a strong start. This means we must build and expand our state’s early learning program, ECEAP, and strengthen our child care programs for working parents.

There is very encouraging news from a recent, rigorous study on ECEAP out from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP). WSIPP found significant test score gains from ECEAP participants in third, fourth and fifth grade – compared with similar peers who did not participate in ECEAP. This positive impact is almost twice as large as the average impact in other states!

Now here’s the bad news – according to the annual “Quality Counts” report from Education Week Washington ranks 47th among states on preschool enrollment. Washington earned a “D” for a couple reasons – lower that average levels of preschool enrollment and a large enrollment gap between rich and poor children.

Washington currently spends less than 1% of its general fund budget on early learning. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better.

Less than 50% of children who arrive in Kindergarten here in are ready to learn. Yet, Washington spends less than 1 cent of each tax dollar received on early childhood education. With our current investment, there are thousands of eligible children we cannot reach. When a child loses the opportunity to gain an early start, we all lose. ECEAP is a strong preschool program with proven results – it’s time we expand it to reach all Washington’s at-risk children.

This session I look forward to working with my colleagues to make strong investments in our children’s future. I’ll be updating you on this and other important issues as the session progresses.

In the meantime, I want to hear what is important to you! My door is open. Please don’t hesitate to call, e-mail or visit me in Olympia.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy new year,

Ruth