“And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money. There most be more money. The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud.”
This quote from D. H. Lawrence’s classic essay, “The Rocking Horse Winner” may well describe Gov. Mike Easley’s More at Four pre-kindergarten program, designed especially for “at risk” children, after it received a $9.1 million boost in funds in this year’s state budget.
Easley thinks that adding more money from the government coffer will allow 2,000 more children to gain access to the high-minded early-education program. “My commitment to ensure that North Carolina provides a superior education for all our students will not waver,” Easley said in a recent press release. “With our expanded funding for More at Four, we will serve over 12,000 four-year-olds this year in high quality pre-kindergarten programs.”
Initial testing of children in the More at Four program is showing promise, said scientist Ellen Peisner-Feinberg of the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Preliminary results from year two of the More at Four program show the children are having better outcomes overall,” said Peisner-Feinberg, who is the director of the More at Four evaluation. “There has been significant growth in the kids that we wouldn’t see otherwise. The kid’s scores are going up and they are progressing at a higher rate through the program.”
The More at Four program has risen from a $6.5 million budget in 2001-2002 to $51 million in 2004-2005.
The program will need additional revenue to evolve and continue services, said Karen Taylor, also of the FPG Child Development Institute. Taylor was one of several people responsible for compiling information in a Needs and Resources Assessment Survey given to More at Four administrators in 2003.
The results found 83 percent of the respondents did not think they had adequate funding at their site. ”Money is a huge factor for the More at Four program,” she said. “I don’t think it’s costing too much.”
The survey also revealed “severe” operating challenges needing money to remedy. This includes both the ways and means to transport children to and from the program, and building or acquiring new facilities to serve more children.
Although the program is provided in all 100 counties of the state, it doesn’t take into account that More at Four requires, penny for penny, matched or blended funds in order to exist. This places an especially heavy burden on the smaller, more rural counties, where the program is often needed most.
Jones County is one of the more vulnerable communities where officials cringe at the thought of helping to fund another government-mandated program. “The state makes these rules and then mandates that we pay for it,” Jones County Commissioner Sondra Ipock Riggs said of the increase. “I mean it’s a burden on us. We just won’t be able to do it. It’s just not fair. It just cripples us.”
Riggs said Jones County has only 10,381 residents living in 5,312 households. They are not able to absorb newer programs because the county is already stretched to the limit, having to pay a yearly $10 million school bill, $13 million for Social Services and $1 million in Medicaid.
It’s become so bad, Riggs said, that the commissioners have gone to Raleigh several times to beg state legislators to change their minds on more mandated programs. “I am hot under the collar for the legislature and governor for letting this go on and doing this to our county,” she said. “We just can’t do it. Unlike [other governments], Jones County cannot work in a deficit. We have to balance our budget every June the 30th. It’s devastating and I don’t know how we are going to continue.”
To add insult to injury, Riggs said, Easley has taken money from the strapped county every year for four years to help pay off the rising state deficit.
Riggs said the county’s one salvation would be if the governor studied all of the educational and child-care programs to make sure there aren’t any duplications or to rid itself of archaic programs that don’t work anymore but are eating up precious fiscal resources.
Peisner-Feinberg said a large philosophical shift in educational thinking might need to occur, too, though of a different kind. She said the state might need to find a way to offer free pre-kindergarten classes to all children in North Carolina. “There is a general trend right now of pushing down education,” she said. “Kindergarten looks like first grade and first grade looks like second grade. Schools are increasing the complexity. Children are expected to do more and do better. More at Four helps the at-risk children make that adjustment into school. There is evidence that would say it’s beneficial for all kids.”
Whatever Easley does, Riggs said, action is desperately needed. She said the governor needs to be held accountable and he can start by answering the compelling question of “how much is too much” to spend on government-mandated programs, even if they have merits.
“The legislatures start these programs and then they can’t pay for them,” Riggs said. “Then, they fling them back on the counties. We’re just a rural agricultural county. We can’t compete with the bigger counties when this happens.”