Backers of higher quality early learning programs have been successful in the current legislative session, scoring a new far-reaching governance bill and the first new money for the programs in at least a decade.
A bill (HB 7165) that would move the state's voluntary pre-kindergarten and school readiness programs to the Department of Education and tighten accountability for them has passed the House unanimously and is expected to come up for a Senate vote on Wednesday.
And Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami and chair of the House Education Appropriations subcommittee, fought for and won a $5.1 million allocation that hadn't appeared in either the original Senate budget or that of Gov. Rick Scott.
"I think after enough conversations with our friends in the Senate, they realized that with the amounts of money we had in this new budget, especially the education budget which had the largest allocation of all that $5.1 million to finally make early learning whole was the right thing to do," Fresen said.
The early learning coalitions have a waiting list of nearly 70,000 children statewide, but were slated for no new money this year, even as the House and Senate touted their plans to increase K-20 education funding by $1 billion.
What's more, some coalitions lost money after last year's session. The state Office of Early Learning imposed a new funding formula that shifted money from several coalitions to others, but now the new money will restore those funds.
"We are going to use this money to serve an additional 700 children," said Evelio Torres, executive director of the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, which lost $2 million last year. "Not1 cent will be used for administration."
"In Miami-Dade, it's huge," Fresen said. "There is a larger proportion of children in Miami-Dade that qualify."
Observers credit lawmakers' willingness to give new dollars to early learning programs to the House governance bill by Rep. Marlene O'Toole, R-Lady Lake, and chair of the House Education Committee. At O'Toole's direction, the committee members visited early learning programs outside their districts in order to understand their problems and needs. The bill passed the full House unanimously last week.
The Senate governance bill (SB 1722) by Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, temporarily postponed from consideration on Tuesday, could get a final vote as early as Wednesday.
"This is a major, historical moment for early learning," said Brittany Birken, executive director of the Florida Children's Council. "We've got to make the most of this opportunity."
Fresen said the next step is for policymakers to understand the necessity of early learning to a child's future success.
"I think the more that the empirical data come out that the earlier the child is provided not just an environment but a high-quality academic environment the more chance there is for that child to be successful out of the gate in the K-12 system and certainly be on the most important metric of all, which is reading at grade level by Grade 3," he said.
