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A (Small) Boost for Head Start in Utah

State lawmakers in Salt Lake City approved a $100,000 allocation for the state’s Head Start, which will fund an . The Utah Head Start program served 5,500 children last year. The funding was far short of the original $700,000 that Head Start advocates sought, but it is a small victory .

Quality vs. Quantity in Florida Pre-K Classrooms

Pre-k enrollment numbers are easy to tally, but pre-k expansion sometimes comes at the cost of pre-k quality. Consider Florida, where state Pre-k administrator Monesia Brown (124,000 four-year olds) along with recent screening results that show improvements in the students’ literacy skills. Not so fast, responded Children’s Campaign, Inc. president Roy Miller, –and that these pre-k quality is more important than size. Miller also noted that a shocking number of four-year-olds are being expelled from Florida’s pre-k classrooms. a report released earlier this week by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), found that 21 out of 49 state pre-k programs, including Florida’s, do not require pre-k teachers to have a B.A. degree.

Bill to Offer Pre-K for Military Kids

Children of members in the armed services are, which also makes it difficult for parents to enroll them in quality pre-k programs. A, a Montgomery County Democrat, would allow the state to offer its pre-k services to children of service members, in addition to the low-income students who currently qualify for the program. The proposal would not expand the existing state pre-k program, but the state hopes to have universal pre-k in place by 2014. Other states, , have already expanded their pre-k eligibility requirements to include children of military families.