Governor Sean Parnell has announced his vetoes, which totaled some $67 million, and fiscal conservatives across the state likely cheered this move of frugality in an otherwise generous legislative session.
But at least one budget cut by Parnell and his administration is seriously shortsighted — cuts to the pre-kindergarten programs across the state. An appropriation of $1.2 million for Pre-K grants, $2.8 million for a parents-as-teachers program and $973,000 for a pilot Pre-K expansion were all cut from the budget.
At a recent presentation to the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Parnell reportedly expressed the opinion that the programs were under-researched and ideally, parents should be the ones teaching their young children, although he noted that some are not prepared for that responsibility.
And how.
But there's a lot more to it than that.
Spend some time in any classroom in Alaska - a week, say — and you'll notice that not all students are created equal, but teachers are tasked with finding a way to gear programs to include a massive range of learning styles and abilities. It's hard enough just given the diversity in of human beings to teach 20 to 30 children all at the same time.
But if you add to that the variables of our society and the wide range of ways parents spend time with their children, the span becomes even wider. A child who is read to, not to mention properly fed and cared for, has a massively greater capacity to learn than the child who is parked next to the television all day for the first four years of its life. That doesn't mean the tube-raised kid is any less intelligent. It just means that child's teacher has a lot more work to do to get them up to speed with the rest of the class.
There are a zillion studies out there about the impacts of reading, singing and doing other enriching activities with your pre-kindergarten-aged child. Anyone who has children knows that they are little sponges for information, no matter what their learning style. But if the opportunities aren't there, they can't learn much beyond Dora the Explorer's excellent Spanish immersion program — no offense Dora fans, but really, children are way more intelligent than that.
So here's the rub for all you folks who are die-hard public radio listeners, don't have TV, eat organic food religiously and have taught your children a second language by age 4 — your children are not immune to the impact of these budget cuts to pre-kindergarten programs.
Here's why.
If there are even a handful of children in your child's class who are struggling to grasp the basics — from how to follow instruction to how to hold a crayon, guess who the teacher is going to have to devote a large chunk of time to?
Sure, there are teachers aides who help out, but the majority of the time, it is up to this one, brave soul who stands at the head of the classroom and tries to impart a thing or two on this diverse crowd before her or him. And that's where the pre-kindergarten option really changes things.
You can look at it from a purely financial perspective, points out National Education Association Alaska's Barb Angaiak. She notes that while it would be great if all children were properly educated by their parents, that just isn't how the world is. Investing in early education pays off, Angaiak said, because when children enter school not ready to learn, it increases the need for intervention and remediation programs.
Angaiak makes another valid point relating to the governor's funding of Alaskan Performance Scholarships.
"Investing on the end of a children's educational career and not at the beginning is questionable public policy," she wrote.
Parnell said these pre-kindergarten programs were expanding too rapidly and more research needed to be done into how to best serve these students. Programs like Head Start got substantial funding from the state. Let's hope that the state administrators follow through on that statement and investigate how best to serve children. Let's hope that one way or another, 4-year-olds who need help preparing for the coming year of learning get the help they need, even if they aren't old enough to vote.
And next year, let's hope Parnell has researched the situation enough to realize that investing in children is never a waste of money.
Carey Restino is editor of The Bristol Bay Times, where this commentary first appeared. It is republished here with permission.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch. Alaska Dispatch welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.