High-Quality, Publicly Funded Pre-K
16 years. Now, the Pre-K Counts appropriation stands at over $300 million to serve more children and fund providers for their services. Combined, high-quality pre-k programs are now funded at nearly $400 million annually to serve Pennsylvania’s 3- and 4-year-olds—an impressive investment considering this funding exceeds the federal requirements to provide pre-k programming. Fortunately, Pre-K Counts and HSSAP have had a long history of bipartisan support, with many understanding the importance of high-quality pre-k as the key to success in kindergarten. While access to high-quality pre-k has historically received bipartisan support in Pennsylvania, the connection between access to high-quality child care as the first step in a child’s educational and life journey is less understood. Pennsylvania’s early care and education system provides care through a mixed-delivery system, including child care centers, home-based and pre-k programs. High-quality child care is vital in ensuring enough providers offer high-quality pre-k programming to meet demand within the state and children are entering preschool programs with an already established skill set. High-quality child care providers comprise 46% of Pre-K Counts providers, the largest proportion, and nearly half of all participating Pre-K Counts children are served in high-quality child care centers. Pennsylvania’s early care and education system is intertwined in this way to serve children from the very beginning, in the setting(s) that work best for their families, to give them the best chance possible to thrive. However, much work is still required to stabilize the system and ensure all working families in Pennsylvania can access high-quality education for their young children.
Performance Standards that assure high-quality education. 20 Most Head Start programs are in center-based locations; however, in some rural areas of the state, Head Start may be offered as a home-based program where home visitors bring the Head Start program to families in their homes. 21 Pre-K Funding State funding for pre-k in Pennsylvania began in 2004 when the legislature began the HSSAP to supplement federal funding to allow more families to access the program. Head Start had bipartisan support based on its established quality standards and monitoring system and began with an initial investment of $15 million. Since then, an additional $73.2 million has been invested in the program for a total investment of $88.2 million. The success of HSSAP helped build support for creating Pre-K Counts in 2007. Pre-K Counts began with an initial investment of $75 million to serve over 11,000 children. 22 Those appropriations have grown steadily over the past
2023 State of Early Care and Education
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