$10M Watt Bulb For Bright Beginnings
The Democrat majority on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners is prepping for a push to fork over $10 million to save the Bright Beginnings pre-kindergarten program, via a special grant in addition to any normal operating funding the county provides CMS. It’s slated for discussion at the board’s meeting next week.
Below is the e-mail that Commissioners Chairman Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, sent to the county clerk, followed on the heels by a response from Republican Commissioner Bill James:
Roberts’ e-mail:
Can you please add to our agenda this coming Tuesday an item for Commissioner Leake under Commissioners requests. It should be titled “Grant Funding for CMS.”
It is an action item that reads as follows:
Action requested: Instruct the County Manager to explore an agreement with CMS that would be a County grant of $10 million that would be used to fund pre-school programs for underserved children in Mecklenburg County. This directed funding from the BOCC would be in addition to the operational funding to be voted on later as part of the County’s annual budget.
Explanation: Educators, pediatricians, and child development specialists understand the value of pre-school, literacy based instruction, especially for children in underserved communities with few resources in the home. The BOE is considering cutting more than half of the pre-school classrooms from the current CMS offerings. Many of those children who would lose this instruction reside in neighborhoods that have already been hit hard by school, library, and recreation center closings. The County sees the results of children who arrive at kindergarten with no knowledge of numbers or letters; they struggle to catch up, require teachers to spend extra time, and take an unusual amount of time adjusting to the discipline of a classroom setting. Too frequently they become the students who drop out of school early and end up in our criminal justice system. CMS K-3 classrooms are slated to lose teacher assistants all together in the coming budget cuts, which will make it harder for teachers to work with those students who are unprepared. This could lead to a downward spiral in academic achievement for many K-3 classrooms and beyond.
The BOE is scheduled to vote on whether to cut $10 million for pre-school classrooms on February 8. The BOCC understands that the BOE is responsible for prioritizing education spending and setting education policy, and may not be willing to accept funding with strings attached. This type of directed funding may be difficult to contract legally, and it may be the process is too cumbersome to enact. But in the event that CMS is mutually agreeable, and the documentation possible, the BOCC would offer to support the pre-K program, knowing its importance to young children who are innocent victims of scarce resources and difficult environments, in some of the most underserved communities in our county (many in District 2). This funding would be in addition to whatever amount the BOCC votes to give CMS for operational funding later during the June budget discussions.
Fiscal impact: $10 million for FY2012
James’ response:
Well,
1. I think it is legal (for the start of the budget year AKA the ‘High School Challenge’),
2. We don’t have the money,
3. If we allocate the money it would be expense of regular CMS dollars (taking away from K-12 teachers),
4. Bright Beginnings doesn’t work (no matter the wailing) and Smart Start, More at Four and Success by Six do ESSENTIALLY the same thing.
5. CMS’ Constitutional Mandate is K-12 NOT ‘pre-k to 12’. Funding ‘pre-k’ above K-12 violates the NC Constitution.
6. If you want to help these kids, remove them from the bad homes they are in and allowed them to be ‘raised’ not ‘just get big’ (to borrow Commissioner Pendergraph’s well-chosen statement). Removing them along with Bright Beginnings might work. As it stands any benefit is lost after the 3rd grade.
I find it hard to justify that the Commission would insist on making the first priority for school funding a program that is documented to not work and one that Dr. Gorman and the School Board has said is not as high a priority as paying for teachers and teachers assistants. If it were a high priority (above teachers for example) it wouldn’t be on Dr. Gorman’s list in the first place.
Are we to insert ourselves into CMS funding priorities and tell them that they must keep Bright Beginnings and, by implication, fire teachers? If so, we would then become responsible specifically for the firing of X number of teachers jobs that would be saved if Bright Beginnings was cut.
This sounds like a very dumb move on many levels.
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