By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | About one of every seven 4-year-olds in South Carolina isn’t getting the kindergarten education they need to get a better chance at future success.
The culprit? The odd and convoluted way early childhood education is funded in South Carolina. It works against poor kids who live in richer school districts.
For the state to fix the problem, legislators will have to come up with $35.6 million to $71.8 million in new recurring funding to make sure every at-risk 4-year-old can go to kindergarten. But right now, the money’s not there. In the coming year, state lawmakers will be lucky to have a pool of $300 million in new funding to spend on everything the state needs — from a billion a year for better roads to millions for increased health costs.
Traditionally, kindergarten has started for students at age five. But through the years, educators have said starting earlier gives children a better foundation to learn and succeed.
Three years ago, state lawmakers boosted funding to create more 4-year-old kindergarten educational opportunities for at-risk kids in poorer school districts. It also was a way for the General Assembly to make up for underfunding poor districts for decades, as highlighted in the landmark Abbeville education equity lawsuit ruling which found the state needed to do more in poor districts.
What the legislature essentially did was to take each of the state’s 81 school districts and assign it a poverty score. It then boosted the $19.8 million of existing public 4K funding in poorer districts in 2013 by $29 million the following year. And the year after that, lawmakers added another $15 million in funding. This year, schools have $44.5 million more for 4-year-old kindergarten than they did four years ago. The districts that got the money had poverty index scores of 70 or higher.
But the new funding didn’t do the job of picking up costs to educate all 4 year olds. According to the state Education Oversight Commission, South Carolina had an estimated 57,336 children who were age four in the 2015-16 school year. Some 16,581 students were not considered “at risk,” meaning they were considered to live in households that could afford to provide early education. But the remaining students — 40,755 of them across the state — were classified as “at risk.”
In 2015-16, just over half of at-risk students– some 20,667 children — received 4K education through one of several programs, including Head Start, a child care voucher system or the new public 4K program funded by the extra millions from the legislature.
The difference — about 20,000 students — live in the 20 school districts that have deeper pockets, fueled by a broader tax bases. About 12,000 of these students attended 4K programs offered in these districts, according to state Department of Education figures. The state pays $15 million from another fund to these districts to subsidize 4K education, but that’s not enough to pay the full price. The 20 districts appear to pick up the rest of the cost — more than $36 million.
Unfortunately, all of that local money and the state subsidy still are not enough to complete the job. An estimated 8,250 4-year-olds — one in seven of kids this age — in South Carolina are at risk and don’t appear to be getting early childhood education.
To get this group — poor kids who live in richer counties who don’t get the start they should — into the kind of early education they need will take some work and more money. Based on a $4,323 average cost per student, it could cost up to $36 million more every year — and that’s if the local districts keep putting in $35 million. But to not provide schooling to them would be an odd kind of reverse inequity that could spawn more lawsuits.
Perhaps what the legislature needs to do is completely overhaul that way 4K education is funded by getting rid of the overlap, separate funding streams and confusion. Simplify the program. Use more lottery money on the front end of education. Incorporate universal 4K into regular state education and give every 4-year-old kid a chance. To do less is to invite more problems.
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