The economic tailspin forcing states to look closely at spending priorities didn’t keep 29 states from increasing enrollment in their preschool programs last year. Regrettably, Indiana still languishes among the handful of backward states with no support for high-quality pre-K.

That’s the finding from the National Institute for Early Education Research’s annual survey, released this month. Indiana is among just 12 states that dedicate no public funds for preschool. Two of those states, Alaska and Rhode Island, began offering pilot pre-K programs this academic year.

Indiana’s failure to follow suit ignores both a vital link in the lifelong learning continuum and a check on higher costs for special education, remediation and more costly public expenses such as law enforcement and prisons.

Tony Bennett, state superintendent of public instruction, said last week that he supports early childhood initiatives but suggested that it will require changes in Indiana’s method of funding schools for the resources to be available to expand those opportunities. In the meantime, budget cuts in K-12 schools have forced some districts to restrict even full-day kindergarten.

Fortunately, it’s not all bad news for early childhood education. Leaders at the federal level and educators and advocates in the region are stepping up to fill the void left by Indiana policymakers, creating and supporting high-quality programs serving the youngest Hoosiers. Northeast Indiana is seeing some promising developments.

Early Head Start

Federal stimulus dollars are the source for 10 new jobs and a second Early Head Start program in the region. CANI (Community Action of Northeast Indiana) received more than $1.1 million to serve 72 children from low-income families in Allen, Noble and Whitley counties, according to Mary Lee Freeze, CANI Head Start director. DeKalb County has had an Early Head Start program in place for several years.

Unlike the traditional Head Start program, which serves children ages 3 to 5 in learning centers, Early Head Start is a community-based program targeted at pregnant women, infants and toddlers. Tammy Sheppard, manager of CANI’s new program, said clients will receive home visits and twice a month will participate in play dates designed to promote socialization and parenting skills.

“What I hope families get out of it is how to be involved in their children’s lives and education from the very start,” Sheppard said. “Parents are their children’s first teachers, and they can make sure children are ready to learn when they start school.”

CANI is now training staff and processing applications. In Noble County, one caseworker will work with the Hispanic community, while another in Allen County will work with Burmese families.

The federal funding couldn’t come at a better time. Early Head Start will fill a little of the gap left by severe budget cuts to Healthy Families, another home visitation program aimed at low-income families and an important tool in preventing child abuse and neglect.

Title I preschool

If state education officials don’t recognize the value of high-quality preschool, at least federal and local education officials have. Fort Wayne Community Schools now dedicates a portion of its Title I funds, earmarked for children from low-income families, to preschool programs at 14 elementary schools. It will add a preschool program at Harrison Hill Elementary School in the fall, with hopes to expand to Holland, Lindley and Waynedale elementaries in the future.

Get Nichols, FWCS elementary director, said the preschool experience is invaluable, particularly for students from low-income families and those whose first language is not English.

“A lot of our children don’t have an opportunity to interact with others. They might be left in front of TV,” she said. “Dialogue and conversation is very important in developing early reading skills, early math skills. … It’s exposure to literacy.”

East Allen County Schools also offers Title I-funded preschool, at Village Elementary and the former Benoit Academy.

Foundation support

Charitable foundations are among the biggest supporters of early learning, and northeast Indiana has two great assets in the Dekko Foundation, based in Noble County, and the Foellinger Foundation in Fort Wayne.

The two groups are collaborating to offer “If Only” grants of up to $500 for child care providers and preschool teachers to cover the cost of new materials, training, field trips or other expenses their organizations – which generally operate on tight budgets – can’t afford.

Tom Leedy, president of the Dekko Foundation, explained that support for early childhood programs makes for good employees.

“Regional leaders have recently identified the development of a highly skilled workforce as a vital part of maintaining and building our quality of life in northeast Indiana. But a highly skilled workforce doesn’t magically happen,” he said. “A highly skilled workforce is built, from birth, by making sure that children have the necessary developmental experiences – from their families, communities and schools – to maximize their talents and skills. Because early childhood education is the foundation upon which all other education builds, an investment in quality child care and preschools is a long-term investment in workforce quality.”

In addition, PNC Foundation will grant awards in northeast Indiana when PNC Financial Services completes its conversion of National City bank offices next month. The foundation’s nationwide “Grow Up Great” initiative is a 10-year, $100 million commitment aimed at children from birth through age 5. Early learning programs in the 12 northeast Indiana counties where PNC does business are likely to benefit from that initiative.

Child care improvements

Federal stimulus dollars totaling almost $43 million have bolstered child care services in Indiana. The bulk of the money has paid for an additional 3,500 child care vouchers so that low-income families have access to care while parents work or go to school. The balance of the stimulus money is being spent to improve the quality of child care, including a special emphasis on projects to enhance infant and toddler care. A portion of those funds are being used to promote Paths to Quality, the voluntary quality rating system created by Allen County’s Early Childhood Alliance.

The stimulus money has benefited northeast Indiana child care providers, according to Pam Leffers, director of programs for Early Childhood Alliance, including scholarship costs for about 100 child care professionals to attend the Indiana Early Childhood Conference.

Early learning teachers

The Indiana Department of Education did make one concession for early learning in the past year. Its initial recommendations for revising teacher licensing requirements would have eliminated a separate early childhood education license in favor of a preschool through grade 6 credential – a major step backward. Early childhood educators, including northeast Indiana professionals, effectively argued that instruction must be tailored differently for very young children, and the early childhood license remains.

“Early childhood educators appreciate the fact that young children learn differently from older children – they must manipulate materials and have extended opportunities to build their own understanding of complex concepts,” according to Terri Jo Swim, the early childhood education and elementary program coordinator for IPFW. “This is just one reason why young children need teachers with specialized knowledge base.”

IPFW, in collaboration with Ivy Tech Northeast, is working to make training for early childhood educators more available in this region. The university has hired a second early childhood faculty member and is working toward approval of a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, Swim said. The degree program has been approved at the department level, but it still requires university approval and an OK from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

Swim said the plan is to require an associate’s degree, which is available through Ivy Tech, to enter the bachelor’s program. The community college program would provide a year of in-depth study of children from birth through age 5 and a year of study of K-3 education. The bachelor’s degree program at IPFW would be the first four-year program in northeast Indiana with an emphasis on early learning. Previously, students earned a four-year elementary education degree with a concentration in early childhood.

The missing puzzle piece continues to be state support for high-quality preschool programs. Reams of research back up the value, and some of its strongest proponents are economists like Art Rolnick, senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who preaches the economic benefits of public investment in high-quality preschool for at-risk children. He calculated returns of as high as 16 percent on one long-term preschool study – an attractive investment by any measure.

Political leaders in other states have also recognized the value of early childhood education. Indiana’s leaders must do the same. But in the meantime, the work of area educators and advocates will help northeast Indiana children move ahead.