Gov. Gregg Abbott signed House Bill 4 (HB4) into law this spring, targeted at improving Texas’ pre-K education. The $130 million grant program, HB4, is intended to be awarded over the next two years to school districts who meet certain criteria such as utilizing a state approved pre-K curriculum and using teachers who meet certification requirements. Districts who meet the bill’s requirement could receive up to $1,500 per child.

Gov. Abbott stated this will give an opportunity to see what works; however, we already know what works in early education. Not only are there many studies that detail what works, the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) standards highlight many of these in their Quality Standards Benchmarks – including some biggies like child/staff ratios and class size – which this bill fails to address.

New Law At-A-Glance:

Pluses:

  • Support for Early Education: The bill received bi-partisan support and won final passage with a unanimous vote.
  • Beginnings of Education Advocacy: It is a good beginning in advocacy for the importance of quality early education by supporting resources for pre-K. Abbot himself described this as a “starting point.”
  • Public/Private Partnerships: HB4 allows for ISD’s to contract with quality private pre-K providers—a model that has shown to be beneficial in supporting both access and quality.
  • Early Learning Standards: Specific mention of a connection to developmentally appropriate Early Learning Standards  (will not include Common Core)—and focuses on developmentally appropriate practices

Minuses:

  • Not Enough: The law is weaker than many educators had hoped.
  • Doesn’t Cover the Cut: Does not fully restore the $200 million cut from pre-K in 2011 (when a similar grant program was gutted).
  • Related Issues Ignored: Does not include important indicators of quality such as lower child/teacher ratios and full-day instruction.
  • Benchmarks Not Met: Does not increase state ranking on the National Institute of Early Education Research Quality Benchmarks

The passing of HB4 will not increase the Texas score on the NIEER benchmarks (we score a 2 out of 10 indicators of quality) because it does not change the basic qualities of our State pre-K requirements, it does offer an opportunity to compare short-term outcomes for districts that are positioned to take advantage of the incentive as compared with those that are not able to offer higher-quality programs.

While the comparisons in Texas may be beneficial—it’s simply not necessary, we already have data that indicates there are long-term benefits to quality pre-K—with intentional, comprehensive teaching and small groups being connected to larger cognitive gains. We also know what won’t work—pre-K done on the cheap—with an eye for reducing the expense at the cost of quality and all of the associated benefits.

I am glad our State has stepped up the pre-K focus, but I hope this dip of the toe into quality isn’t the only thing used to determine if we jump all the way in to the quality early education pool.

Photo credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera, The Texas Tribune

Lyn Lucas is the Chief Program Officer at Camp Fire First Texas. Her specialties include working with children in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors, managing school-age programs and NAEYC-accredited early childhood education programs. Lyn holds a Master of Education in curriculum studies and serves on the Texas Youth and Child Care Worker Association board.