Alabama has not yet achieved universal pre-K enrollment despite its success

Emma Kate Harrah, second right, counts the number of words in a sentence at Faulkner University Pre-K in Montgomery, Ala., Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Alabama Reflector Photo by Stew Milne)

Alabama generally ranks near the bottom in most measures of education, but it is home to a pre-K program that meets all benchmarks, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.
Despite that success, state officials have been cautious in efforts to expand the program to cover all of the state’s youngest learners.

State officials focused over the years on maintaining the quality of the program, meaning that the state has not prioritized expansion as other states have. While the program has grown, it has yet reached universal access, due in part to what officials say is a lack of personnel and facilities.

Experts say that political will and funding are the final pieces in achieving universal pre-K in Alabama.

But the person in charge of the state program says the Department is considering whether universal pre-K is still the goal.

“Do that many parents want their child in a public pre-K program?” said Hume.

Quality and reach

Alabama’s pre-K program regularly meets all of the benchmarks through the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). And expansion’s been on the table for a long time. Former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley made pre-K a major focus in his second term, joining many other governors attracted to the potential pre-K had for improving long-term student performance — a large return on investment.

In 2008, funding for pre-K expanded, while the education budget shrunk overall. But the program was still tiny: About 5.5% of eligible 4-year-olds were enrolled in the program that year.

Today, pre-K has grown in Alabama but still falls short of universal coverage. During the 2022-23 school year, around 39% of 4-year-olds were served, according to NIEER. A map of child care deserts from the Center for American Progress released 2018 shows much of the state lacking.

Universal pre-K does not mean enrolling 100% of 4-year-olds in a program. NIEER considers universal pre-K to be reached at 70% of the current rate. Allison Friedman-Krauss, an associate research professor at NIEER, wrote in an email that 70% is considered universal because some parents will not opt in and about 7% of 4-year-olds are enrolled in Project Head Start, a federal program. The number of 4-year-olds in the state is also shrinking.

But that vision might be changing in Alabama, said Jan Hume, the acting secretary of Early Childhood Education.

“I think, you know, it can be closer to 60%,” Hume said. “Who knows? And so, I just think things have changed. And so, really, the 70% is where we start. Like is that really still the target?”

The department did not ask for a large increase in funding this year and is doing “strategic growth,” she said. Hume said that the state is also evaluating whether universal pre-K is still the state’s goal.

But the state has met NIEER’s benchmarks. Among other things, the organization requires pre-K standards to be “ comprehensive, aligned, supported, culturally sensitive.” Teachers must specialize in pre-K and have at least a bachelor’s degree. Class sizes should max out at 20 with staff-to-child ratios at 1-to-10 or better.

Alabama, across grade levels, has struggled to retain and attract teachers. That’s no different for pre-K, experts said. School systems have said the state is not paying enough for local pre-K teacher salaries, said Jan Hume, the acting secretary of Early Childhood Education, which administers the state’s pre-K program. Hume said they’re currently looking at their grant structure to see what works.

Hume said she dreams of speaking with more college counselors and advisers about the opportunities in early childhood education. She said though they’ve historically been low-paying positions, the department requires that public pre-K teachers are paid the same as other teachers.

She said there’s a “tightrope” of funding the workforce while keeping expenses within budget and not passing costs along to parents.

In addition to staffing and finances, space is among the limiting factors for expansion that experts and the department list. Facilities are a concern for adding more classrooms, Hume said, especially in fast-growing areas, such as Shelby County.

“We’re finding just an interesting problem in some places that are like growing so quickly, and it’s, like, ‘Where can we put a pre-K?’” she said.

Senate Finance and Taxation Education Budget Chair Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said in a recent phone interview that the facilities were among the reasons that he had also heard for not expanding.

“My understanding is, in the last couple years, the Early Childhood Education Department has not been able to utilize all the funding that it’s had to add additional pre-K classrooms,” he said.

NIEER experts estimated that it would probably take around an additional $175 to $200 million to fund universal pre-K in the state.

“Total spending on preschool in Alabama in 2022-2023 was $254.5 million (including $173.7 million in state funding and $80.7 million in local funding),” Friedman-Krauss said. “To get to universal, the state would have to about double funding.”

Steve Barnett, senior co-director and founder of NIEER, said expansion is possible.

“If Alabama doesn’t make it in 10 years, it’s because the money wasn’t appropriated to move that quickly — not because you couldn’t do it,” he said.

Orr said there is no lack of political will.

“I do know there has historically been a conscientious resolve to increase pre-K funding as much as they could sustain,” he said.

Is universal pre-K the goal?

The FY 2025 budget sets aside nearly $201 million for the Department of Early Childhood, an increase of over $6 million (3.2%) from the previous year.

Early Childhood Education Department spokesperson Amanda Samford said in an email that the portion of the budget that goes into classrooms roughly breaks down like this: 73% for instruction (teacher salary and benefits); 11% for instructional support; 10% for operations and maintenance; 3% for classroom equipment; and 3% for administration. Instructional support services include substitute teachers and resource teachers.

In fact, around 20 classrooms did not reapply, she said. “We have attrition every year, like programs are either going out of business or maybe weren’t in compliance, and they sort of dropped out,” she said. “Or maybe they didn’t have enough enrollment, you know, populations have shifted.”

According to the Alabama First Class Pre-k Classroom guidelines, the Office of School Readiness, within ADECE, administers the program and works with classrooms to provide high quality pre-k. If one year in a grant cycle goes by without a teacher showing satisfactory progress, then the program can be defunded unless the teacher is replaced.

The pre-K program serves around 27,000 kids, Hume said. Student enrollment is voluntary, she said, and there’s been a drop in the last couple of years.

“This year, we made a concerted effort to really get the word out and build parent awareness,” she said.

That push included billboards and seeking parent feedback on what ZIP codes the program should expand into.

The Alabama School Readiness Alliance tracks pre-K expansion. The program grew year-over-year by at least a hundred classrooms from 2013-14 to 2019-20. From 2021-22 to 2022-23, the growth was around 70 classrooms.

Cordelia Simmons, a lead teacher at Faulkner, said that she wished that more parents would take advantage of the First Class Pre-K program.

“I wish, I guess, the negative thoughts about pre-K would change, that it’s not a top-tier learning institution for pre-K,” she said.

You don’t have to go to private school to get a great preschool experience, she said.

“This is a free program that’s available, and I wish more people, I guess, respected it,” she said.

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