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The Alabama School Readiness Alliance is a joint campaign of:
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More Alabama child care centers are delivering First Class Pre-K than ever before
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 One of the strengths of Alabama's First Class Pre-K program has been the Department of Early Childhood Education's commitment to pursuing a diverse delivery system. This means that First Class grants are made available not only to public schools and Head Start programs, but also to child care centers, faith-based preschools, and other community-based providers, such as the YMCA.
This fall, 25 of Alabama's 122 new First Class Pre-K classrooms will be located in child care centers and other community-based settings. Although this may seem like a small amount, the number of new community-based sites participating in the First Class Pre-K program grew by 47 percent over the previous year. And, many more providers have expressed an interest in adding a high-quality, voluntary First Class Pre-K classroom in the future.
This enthusiasm is a direct result of efforts to mentor interested child care centers through the First Class Pre-K grant application process. We applaud BOLD GOALS, the Montgomery Education Foundation, Troy University, and other partners for leading these local initiatives. Collectively, this work is showing great promise. Several new First Class Pre-K grant recipients were supported by one of these organizations over the past few years.
ASRA has been collecting best practices from these efforts. Please contact Allison Muhlendorf, ASRA's Executive Director, if you are interested in helping providers in your community become part of the nationally-recognized Alabama First Class Pre-K program. We are happy to help. |
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Advocates celebrate expansion of Alabama First Class Pre-K
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More than 2,100 additional four-year-olds will be able to enroll in a high-quality, voluntary Alabama First Class Pre-K classroom by September 1, according to Governor Ivey's recent announcement that the state will add 122 new classrooms to the program for the upcoming school year. The new classrooms will increase the overall size of Alabama's First Class Pre-K program to 938 classrooms serving approximately 16,884 four-year-olds statewide.
The Alabama School Readiness Alliance and its business-led Pre-K Task Force welcomed Governor Ivey's announcement.
"The continued expansion of Alabama's high-quality, voluntary First Class Pre-K program is tremendous news for the hundreds of families that will gain access to the program this fall. Thanks to increased state investments, the percentage of Alabama four-year-olds enrolled in the program will grow from 25 to 28 percent," said Mike Luce and Bob Powers, the co-chairs of the Alabama School Readiness Alliance Pre-K Task Force. "We are grateful that Governor Ivey and state lawmakers continue to prioritize funding for the expansion of the First Class Pre-K program. We hope they will continue to do so until all families across Alabama that want to enroll their child in a First Class Pre-K classroom are able to do so."
Mike Luce is Vice Chairman of Harbert Management in Birmingham. Bob Powers is the President of The Eufaula Agency. They are joined on the ASRA Pre-K Task Force by more than 40 prominent leaders from the business, education, civic, medical, legal, philanthropic, military and child advocacy communities.
In 2012, the ASRA Task Force launched a ten-year campaign, now in its fifth year, to advocate for incremental increases in First Class Pre-K until the program is fully funded in the 2022-2023 school year.
In May, Alabama Lawmakers appropriated a total of $77.5 million for Alabama's First Class Pre-K program in the 2018 Education Trust Fund Budget. ASRA has estimated that the state would need to appropriate a total level of funding of $144 million to give every Alabama family the opportunity to voluntarily enroll their four-year-old in a First Class Pre-K program.
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Last month, the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) named Alabama First Class Pre-K the highest quality pre-k program in the country for the 11th year in a row. And, this focus on quality is paying off: children that attend Alabama's program outperform their peers in reading and math, according to studies of student achievement through the sixth grade.
How did Alabama's four-year-olds celebrate NIEER's recent announcement? They put on their favorite Justin Timberlake song and danced. We captured it all on video!
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