HUFFINGTON
08.26.12
SMART START?
garten, only enrolls four-year-olds,
a second, Smart Start, offers a variety of services for children ranging in age from birth to five. No
other state has gone further in investing in young children, so last
year, when legislators in the state
slashed the budget for both programs by millions of dollars and
made several other policy changes
that would have prevented thousands of low-income 4-year-olds
from getting a free education, the
news upset teachers and child care
advocates well beyond the borders
of North Carolina.
In 2010, for the first time in a
century, Republicans had come
to power in the state legislature,
and like many other lawmakers around the country, they had
responded to the recession by
pulling money out of programs
for the poor. Thousands of lowincome kids who would have
otherwise started preschool in
September were put on a waitlist. Political turmoil ensued. Six
months after the cuts were made,
the governor, a Democrat and
a former teacher, came up with
enough money to take most of the
kids off the wait list, but by then
Studies find that
children who receive
Pre-Kindergarten
services go on to get
better grades and make
more money than those
who don’t, and that they’re
happier, more confident,
and have fewer psychological problems later on.
only half a year remained until
the start of kindergarten. Ms. Sabrena wasn’t sure that would be
enough time for Nawal.
Nawal was Ms. Sabrena’s most
challenging case*, and Ms. Sabrena
had a few theories as to why. The
child didn’t speak English at home
(her parents came from what is
now North Sudan) and, as far as
Ms. Sabrena could tell, she’d spent
little time around other children
before starting the pre-K program.
(The terms pre-K and preschool
are often used interchangeably, but
educators tend to reserve “preK” for those programs specifically
geared toward preparing four-year-
* The names of some students and parents have been changed at the parents’ request.