Despite a focus on increasing countywide pre-kindergarten services, nearly half of all county students aren’t prepared for class when they enter kindergarten, according to new state data.
The state statistics released Tuesday are renewing a call to action from county officials, who have emphasized the importance of early childhood education in recent years.
About 54 percent of county kindergarteners attended the first day of this school year ready to participate in grade-level curriculum, while 28 percent had some foundational skills needed for instruction and 18 percent had minimal skills required for kindergarten-level learning, according to the state Department of Education.
Montgomery County is in the middle of the pack compared to other counties, the state report shows.
Montgomery County Council President Nancy Navarro said she is working to develop a “four-year action plan” to begin this year focused on improving kindergarten readiness, defined by the state Department of Education as a student’s mastery of language and literacy, mathematics, social foundations, physical well-being and motor development.
Navarro’s plan would bring together the school system, county government, Montgomery College and community groups to identify where to expand pre-k programs for low-income families first.
“Our need is great and we understand we have a sense of urgency and are going to work hard on this issue,” she said.
While expanding early childhood education is costly — county reports indicate the local government and its partners would have to allocate $32 million to enroll all of the county’s approximately 10,000 4-year-olds in pre-k programs — Navarro said doing so is an “economic imperative.”
The county would seek to pull funds from various areas of the budget to help the early childhood education expansion, she said, as well as pursue subsidies to assist families who don’t qualify for free pre-k but don’t have a large enough income to enroll their children in high-quality pre-k programs.
“We all want children to enter school ready to learn and be successful, but it goes beyond that because … they are our workforce and if they’re not able to graduate and access all of the different jobs Montgomery County has to offer, this will have an effect on our economy and that’s a serious issue,” Navarro said. “You can talk all day about creating jobs, but if you don’t have a pipeline of workers ready, we’re going to be behind.”
Increasing access to affordable, high-quality pre-kindergarten statewide was a key focus of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, which spent two years analyzing Maryland public schools and flagging areas for improvement.
The group, also known as the Kirwan Commission, issued its final report last week, with a recommendation to phase in full-day pre-k for all 4-year-olds statewide.
With a $730 million price tag over 10 years, the recommendation suggests offering pre-k at no cost to 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families and on a sliding scale for 4-year-olds from higher income families to “enable children from economically challenging circumstances to begin kindergarten ready to learn like their peers from higher-income families.”
Kirwan will continue its work through this year to determine how the funding of its recommendations, estimated to cost $3.8 billion, should be distributed to local governments.
Statewide, 47 percent of kindergarten students demonstrate readiness to learn, the same percentage as the 2014-2015 school year, according to the state report.
The three counties that offer full-day pre-kindergarten to all students – Somerset, Garrett and Kent counties — had significantly higher percentages of kindergarteners above the state threshold. Baltimore City offers full-day pre-k to all 4-year-old students, but reported only 39 percent of kindergarteners were ready to learn.
Readiness varies greatly by demographic, with 29 percent of Hispanic and Latino kindergarteners ready to learn, compared to 58 percent of white students. The same is true in Montgomery County, where 70 percent of white students demonstrated readiness to learn, compared to roughly 46 percent of black students and 35 percent of Hispanic and Latino students.
The majority of Maryland counties test all of their kindergartners for their “readiness to learn,” as the state calls it, but Montgomery County surveys 12 percent of its kindergarten students, tied with Prince George’s County for the lowest percentage in the state.
School officials said at a recent school board meeting the time the assessment takes to administer is the main reason for its limited distribution.
At-large school board member Jeanette Dixon said the limited, random census used by the school district creates an issue of equity because it is impossible to ensure all demographics are represented appropriately.
“It seems to me it would really be advantageous as kids come into kindergarten to take a couple of days after they get acclimated to the routine to get the information so we can include each individual child,” Dixon said. “I think we have to be really intentional about the things we need to do to get a handle on issues of student achievement.”
Over the past two years, the county has focused on expanding availability of full-day pre-k slots at publicly funded programs, during which time the number of 4-year-olds enrolled in such programs increased from 585 to 1,283, according to county data.
About 1,300 4-year-olds attend full-day programs and 1,900 attend half-day public programs.
“We have a long way to go, and the county is going to have to step up and take action,” said County Council member Hans Riemer. “This is at the core of how our school system succeeds, and how our school system performs is at the core of how our county succeeds.”
Riemer, an at-large member of the council, said because county government and local organizations are generally in support of the initiative, he hopes the county can allocate $10 million toward early childhood education in the next fiscal year.
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@moco360.media
