PRE-K DATA AVAILABLE IN FIRST-OF-ITS KIND DATABASE
Includes Data on Publicly Funded Pre-K Programs at the School District Level
Includes Data on Publicly Funded Pre-K Programs at the School District Level
Washington D.C. — The New America Foundation's Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP) and Early Education Initiativejointly announce today an expansion of FEBP’s education funding database (www.edbudgetproject.org). The database now includes data on funding and enrollment for publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs.
The new data include funding and enrollment for fiscal years 2007 through 2011 at the state and school district levels for:
• State-funded pre-K programs, where such programs exist;
• Head Start programs; and
• Federal special education services for 3-to 5-year-olds provided through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Section 619.
FEBP, which also contains funding, achievement, and demographic data for every state, school district, and institution of higher education in the country, is the only centralized source of these data available to the public, the media, and education policymakers.
The database serves as a reliable resource for journalists and community members seeking information on their local districts or states.
“FEBP’s database now reflects the evolution of our American education system from a K-12 to a PreK-12 system,” said Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative. “For the first time, policymakers and parents can gain information on how many children are enrolled in district-run pre-K programs and the levels at which they are funded. We are also shining a light on the additional data required to provide a complete picture of access to early education in a locality.”
In updating FEBP to include early education information, experts discovered many states and school districts do not collect some of the most basic information about publicly funded programs for young children. FEBP's data do not reflect all publicly funded pre-K programs operated within school district boundaries, particularly those run by community-based organizations (CBOs). Read more on the data limitations here.
The expansion of FEBP’s database to include pre-K was made possible by grants from the Foundation for Child Development.
To read a report that details the problems that stem from states’ lack of data and outlines policy recommendations,Counting Kids and Tracking Funds in Pre-K and Kindergarten: Falling Short at the Local Level, please click here.
To view the pre-K data available from the Federal Education Budget Project, please click here.
To interview one of our experts, please contact Clara Hogan.
About the New America Foundation
New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.
About the Education Policy Program
This project was completed as a partnership between the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative and its Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP). The Early Education Initiative seeks to promote a high-quality and continuous system of early care and education for all children, birth to age 8. FEBP aims to heighten the quality of debate on federal education funding and support fiscally responsible proposals to improve education funding and opportunities for Americans of all ages. It also maintains the most comprehensive database available on education funding, student demographics, and outcomes for every school district and institution of higher education in the country