Ed Money Watch

The post originally appeared on our sister blog Early Ed Watch.

During the media frenzy that followed President Obama’s unprecedented call for expanding pre-K to all four-year-olds in the United States, we estimated that the additional cost to states and the federal government, combined, to be somewhere between $10-15 billion per year. We estimate that the feds and the states currently spend about $9 billion on pre-K for four-year-olds.

We wanted to explain exactly how we came to that conclusion.

According to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), there were approximately 4.1 million four-year olds in the U.S. as of July 2011.  But we shouldn’t assume that 100 percent of those 4.1 million children would participate. Even in states that provide pre-K to any family that wants it, such as Oklahoma and Florida, not all families choose to send their children, and currently about 75 percent are enrolled. Therefore, we predict approximately 75 percent of four-year olds would be enrolled nationally if pre-K were truly universal in all states. That means we are talking about funding pre-K for a little under 3.1 million four-year-olds around the country.

Next we determined a reasonable cost per child.  This, of course, varies by state. (Teacher pay will vary depending on supply and demand, not to mention cost-of-living in a particular area, for example.)  But we do know that the average per-pupil expenditure for children enrolled in Head Start in 2012 was $7,581 (excluding Early Head Start, which is for children under 3 and their mothers).  We also know that the Obama Administration appears to be aiming for a full-day (not a half-day) pre-K program, and that the average spending on a full day of instruction for K-12 students nationally is $12,442 per pupil, according to NIEER.  State-funded pre-K programs of decent quality cost $2,640 to $11,699, with the average at $6,408.* So we round up to $8,000.

By using this formula, we conclude that it would cost $24.6 billion per year to fund a “universal” public pre-K program for all four-year-olds. However, we estimate that states and the federal government already spend about $9.24 billion on pre-K for four-years olds.

Here’s how we got to that number, which we came to through a lot of deduction, so we want to be clear that it’s only an estimate.

States spent about $5.49 billion on state-funded pre-K programs in 2011. (Some of that includes federal funding from  TANF, according to NIEER data, so it is not purely state funding).  In 2011, The federal government spent $7 billion on Head Start (excluding Early Head Start), special-education preschool services (known as IDEA Preschool within the the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and other sources.** Add 5.49 and 7, which is 12.49. Using NIEER data, we know that 74 percent of children enrolled in these publicly funded programs are four year olds. So we multiply .74*12.49 to get to the $9.24 billion number.

So given how much is already spent on pre-K, total new costs would be closer to $15 billion.

There are many caveats to these numbers. Three and five-year olds tend to sneak into some of these numbers on the margins. There are also other forms of funding that we may not be capturing. Lastly, simply taking the full cost of programs and multiplying them by the percentage that is four-year olds is “back-of-the-envelope.” It could cost more because there are certain fixed costs that can’t be multiplied by a percentage, or it could be less because it doesn’t account for efficiencies that are only achieved at a very large scale.

Furthermore, the numbers we are using are also closer to an ideal world of full, universal, high-quality pre-K, so we think that our estimate is on the high end. Therefore we feel comfortable estimating the additional cost to be somewhere between $10-15 billion.

What do you think about our number? Too high? Too low? Let us know.

*We define a program as “high quality” when it meets at least seven of NIEER’s ten benchmarks.

** In 2011 the federal government spent $6.3 billion on Head Start (excluding Early Head Start) and $373.4 million on IDEA 619 (preschool). We round up because some IDEA part B money probably helps fund preschool IDEA programs and there are other federal structures, such as Title I, where some of the money may go to preschool but the numbers are not broken down for us.

Texas has joined Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and 46 other states (including Washington, D.C.) in seeking waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB). With Nebraska and Montana sitting out, Vermont and North Dakota withdrawing, and California flat-out rejected, the pool of non-waiver states continues to shrink. But despite jumping on the waiver bandwagon, Texas breaks the mold in many respects.

Although the Lone Star State’s refusal to adopt the Common Core is one important distinction from other waiver winners, this wasn’t the detail I was most keen to uncover in their formal request. Texas’ plan to implement their own college- and career-ready standards and assessments actually stood out as one of the stronger points of their waiver, and other non-Common Core states, like Virginia and Minnesota, have successfully applied. Rather, Texas had originally considered asking the Department of Education for leeway to redesign the federal Title I funding formula – a provision that would have gone well beyond the flexibility granted to other states and a demand that would have undoubtedly made Texas’ waiver dead on arrival. To their credit, Texas officials removed this request, bringing their final proposal much closer to what the Department is offering.

But does this mean Texas’ waiver will be a hit with the U.S. Department of Education? Not so fast. While the proposal has strong points – like working with higher education to gain buy-in for college- and career-ready standards and articulating a plan to pilot teacher evaluations and scale them statewide – Texas’ proposed system of school accountability and improvement is not among them. In fact, Texas’ waiver could significantly undermine efforts to hold schools accountable for the performance of individual student subgroups.

Texas’ request is complicated by the fact that its state accountability system, which has operated in parallel to NCLB, is undergoing a significant overhaul, with many provisions yet to be finalized. Because Texas would like to fit its existing system into the waiver requirements, the state simply excluded these half-baked provisions from its request. Therefore, Texas’ waiver omits critical details, including how student progress will be measured, what annual performance targets will be, how each component within accountability will be weighted, and how focus and priority schools will be selected. Further, the application doesn’t even include Texas’ proposed framework, burying the information in attachments and hyperlinks.

For those that do seek out the information, Texas’ new performance index leaves a lot to be desired. Similar to other states, Texas plans to use a combination of four indices for accountability: student achievement, student progress, achievement gap closure, and postsecondary readiness. But the state does not specify how the index would translate into specific interventions, i.e. focus and priority schools.

Even more worrisome is how student subgroups and academic subjects will be treated across the four indices. While some states created “super-subgroups,” Texas took a different approach: ignore subgroups altogether.  Within the student achievement index, only the all students group is considered, with proficiency rates combined further across all subject areas. Yet for measuring student progress, subjects are considered separately and all traditional subgroups count– with the exception of low-income students, who are only considered within the performance gap closure index. But the gap closure measures do not consider English Language Learners or special education students. Finally, within the postsecondary readiness index, only racial subgroups are considered on one measure (advanced proficiency rates), while all subgroups (except low-income students) are considered for graduation rates. Texas does not provide a rationale for picking and choosing which indices apply to which subgroups.

Texas could also be plagued by an issue that cropped up in other waivers: annual performance targets. Texas’ targets would be based on the goal of cracking the top ten states nationally on college and career readiness by 2020 – a novel approach worth considering. But it’s unclear how the state could judge itself against others to define the annual targets. Texas is not a Common Core state, and existing national measures, like the SAT or ACT, would only apply to high schools. If the proposed readiness index were used instead, the ranking would be based on Texas assessments, students graduating with advanced Texas diplomas, and graduation rates. Using these measures, Texas would be number one by default – no other state has similar data.

Given these issues, I am doubtful that the Department could approve Texas’ request in its current form. There are simply too many unanswered questions and missing details. That said, Texas’ request is strong enough in other areas to allow for productive negotiations with the Department. With additional assurances and information from the Lone Star State, along with some give and take, NCLB flexibility could reach deep in the heart of Texas by the 2013-2014 school year.

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to approve a stopgap appropriations bill that will fund federal programs for the remainder of fiscal year 2013, once the current continuing resolution (CR) expires on March 27. The big news from the bill, though, is that the House Republicans who wrote the bill missed an opportunity to effectively blunt or cancel the effects of the sequester on education programs.

The House-passed bill provides funding for education programs at the same levels signed into law at the start of fiscal year 2013, minus the March 1 across-the-board cuts that occurred under sequestration, which totaled about 5.1 percent for most education programs. In other words, the proposed bill codifies the $85 billion in spending cuts left in the wake of the sequester.  

It does not need to be that way. House lawmakers could have upheld the post-sequester spending limits trigged by the 2011 budget deal without making across-the-board, universally applied cuts to education programs. Of course, they’d have to make bigger cuts elsewhere to do so – but that is what courageous budgeting is all about.

As we wrote earlier this year, education stakeholders should focus their attention on the March 27 deadline at which appropriations funding for all government agencies expires. That deadline gives Congress a built-in opportunity to rewrite the post-sequester funding levels for every federal program, just as they would through the regular annual appropriations process, while keeping within the overall spending limit that is now in place.

Based on the bill that the House passed yesterday, it looks like lawmakers took a pass on that built-in opportunity. They could have moved funding around between agencies – or even within the appropriation to the U.S. Department of Education – to reduce the impact of the funding cuts on the most critical federal education programs.

There is nothing radical in that proposal. It is what the appropriations process is supposed to be about each year. In fact, the House-passed bill does rearrange the post-sequestration funding levels for the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Why not U.S. Department of Education and Head Start programs, too?

Fortunately, education stakeholders can ask senators that question before it’s too late. Senate lawmakers have yet to vote on the temporary funding measure, and reports suggest that Democratic leadership plans to introduce a spending bill with more changes to the post-sequester funding levels for more agencies than the House-passed version.

Time is running out, however. Congress has only three weeks – until March 27 – to reach an agreement before they risk a government shutdown. In the interim, all eyes will be on the Senate.