Despite having readily available data on the N.C.-funded More At Four pre-kindergarten program that show the program might not be working, the state continues to pour money into the program without testing whether it has long-term learning effects.

The program was created in 2001 under the leadership of Gov. Mike Easley to help begin a child’s learning awareness and development, especially aimed at 4-year-olds who fit within the at-risk guidelines. Since then, the only outstanding number that presents itself in the 2006-07 executive summary is the number of children who have enrolled statewide.

After six years, 69,000 children have enrolled. In the years 2003-04 through 2006-07, the enrollment of 4-year-olds has doubled from 10,891 to 20,468. Despite the increase in enrollment, cognitive and retentive evaluations don’t necessarily follow, education
experts say.

“We have followed More At Four for quite a bit,” said Lindalyn Kakadelis, director of the North Carolina Education Alliance. “There have been enough evaluations done on it that show it does not produce long-term academic advances. It’s a day care. It’s not achieving what it’s supposed to be achieving.”

In the most recent evaluation of the program, in the 2006-07 school year, pre-K children performed better in motor skills, art, music, and math in a pre-K setting in both 2003-04 and 2005-06, than they did the next years of 2004-05 and 2006-07 when they entered kindergarten. The 4-year-olds’ learning performance decreased also from the 2003-04 year to the 2005-06 year.

According to the More At Four 2006-07 evaluation, “local sites are expected to meet a variety of program guidelines and standards around curriculum, training and education levels for teachers and administrators, class size and student-teacher ratios, North Carolina child care licensing levels, and provision of other program services.
Children are eligible for More At Four based on family income (up to 75 percent of state median income or up to 300 percent of federal poverty status)and other risk factors (limited English; identified proficiency disability, chronic health condition and developmental/educational need).”

“I think the curriculum needs to be age-appropriate,” Kakadelis said. “Children are like sponges, who can grasp concepts. We don’t want to hold them up, we want to move them on.”

The 2006-07 key findings show that the percentage of teachers who have obtained pre-K teaching credentials has increased from 39 percent to 55 percent. The overall decrease in the number of teachers who don’t have teacher credentials was from 34 percent to 17 percent.

“These programs, while they have great intentions, do not produce achievement,”
Kakadelis said. “This seems to have turned into a jobs program, and nobody wants to shut them down. If the goal is to have more governmental jobs, then maybe it’s succeeding, but it’s not raising academic achievement.”

Terry Stoops, education analyst at the John Locke Foundation, wrote in a recent editorial, “Gov. Mike Easley proposed adding 10,000 slots and $60 million to his More At Four pre-kindergarten program for at-risk children. Given the considerable cost of operating a statewide pre-kindergarten program, there isn’t any convincing evidence that it places children on a clear path to success in middle and high schools.”

“Rather than increase our investment in early childhood programs, which are costly and may have only short-run benefits, the state should increase its investment in school choice programs, which are cost-efficient and have ongoing benefits,” Stoops said.

“In a path-blazing recent study, Dr. Caroline Hoxby of Harvard University found proficiency gains for students attending charter schools instead of nearby district-run schools. The longer a charter school was in operation, the greater the demonstrated gains among its students.”

While More At Four has not been around for a long time to “show lasting gains in academic performance,” Stoops wrote, “a study by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute assessed More at Four children from the beginning of their pre-kindergarten year to the end of their kindergarten year. This report found that most children retained the skills that they learned over this two-year period. While that finding is not surprising, there is little guarantee that these children will maintain these skills into middle and high school, where students are most
susceptible to falling behind their peers academically.”

Kakadelis believes money for the program needs to be redirected, particularly toward the recruitment of quality kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers. The early years of children’s development are critical. However, if children are not learning and only are
being advanced from year to year with the hope they will retain information throughout their childhood and teenage years, the program’s only benefit is social promotion, Kakadelis said.

“The achievement gap still exists across the board,” Kakadelis said. “We need to revamp the way we’re even rewarding our teachers. We’ve got to come to grips with what is the mission and vision of a school; what is the purpose of a school. If the students are not learning, it doesn’t matter how long the teacher has been there, we need to hold educational establishments accountable. If you are not producing academic gains, we need to change what we are doing.”

More At Four is not the only program that is supposed to speed the development of pre-K children. Kakadelis cited other programs, such as Head Start and the site-specific Bright Beginnings in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System.

Jana Benscoter is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.