Impact of Funding Cuts on Early Childhood Education

Concerned parents and child care givers are to gather this evening in Homestead for a forum to discuss the impact on the proposed budget cuts for Head Start and other pre-school programs in Allegheny County. Linda Hippert, executive director of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, says they are frustrated at the lack of action on a budget....that is "the right budget to benefit children" and the proposed 50% cut in funding for state supplement Head Start and the "Pre-K Counts" program. Hippert says the Senate Republican budget would cut $2.3 million in funding from early education programs in Allegheny County suburban school districts..."that means that 300 children, ages 3 to 5, who are eligible to participate in early childhood eduction will not be able to be served."
Hippert says lawmakers are having to make tough choices in coming up with a budget compromise and so the A-I-U suggests taking the $200 million in the education budget that would have gone to a company to develop state high school graduation tests and new curricula and transfer that money to early education programs. Hippert says the Keystone Exams are not researched-based and have not been successful in other states, but early childhood education has proven to be successful in creating an "equal playing field for children from low-income families who need that good start to education."
The forum is this evening at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit in Homestead at 7:00.