A North Carolina winning streak, longer than any enjoyed by our basketball teams, is in serious danger of ending this year. After almost 50 years of increasing support for early education, the General Assembly is on the brink of cutting what taxpayers do for our youngest students.
Gov. Bev Perdue's budget reduces spending for both Smart Start and More at Four, two pre-school programs that prepare children academically and socially for kindergarten. Given that a high percentage of North Carolina children enter public school "at risk" due to low family incomes and education levels, pre-school programs are essential.
But in 2009, North Carolina faces a budget shortfall of up to $3.4 billion for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. Perdue and the legislature are cutting programs that have not been touched even in the most serious economic downturns of the past 50 years.
North Carolina began its serious effort to improve pre-school education with the implementation of statewide kindergarten during the administration of the late Gov. Bob Scott -- 1969 to 1973. When Gov. Jim Hunt took office in 1977, he created the Primary Reading Program, which was designed to get reading scores for elementary students to the national average by the end of third grade.
When Hunt returned to office in 1993, he established Smart Start, a public-private program that incorporates day care, socialization, health care and some pre-school academic preparation. Gov. Mike Easley established More at Four in 2001, saying the state's at-risk children needed early academic work.
North Carolina has faced at least four major recessions since Scott's tenure, but in each of those downturns legislators preserved early childhood programs. Easley managed to start More at Four and to reduce elementary-grade class sizes during the most recent recession.
Moves are afoot to cut More at Four by $1 million and Smart Start by $8.9 million, and to merge them in an effort to save millions more. These cuts would almost certainly reduce the quality of service and might even reduce the number of children served. Furthermore, it is not at all clear that merging the two programs will work. Although they serve the same age group, advocates of each say they are run very differently with separate purposes.
These are very difficult times, and some cutting must be done while some revenues are raised. Nonetheless, legislators are taking a big risk in cutting early childhood programs. North Carolina's economy and quality of life have improved so dramatically because we have some of the region's strongest schools. Any significant damage to the preparation we provide to our youngest students will haunt us for generations to come.
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