Texas: One Step Forward, One Step Back?

Earlier this month we praised the Texas Education Agency for requesting a $65 million increase in pre-k funding for 2010 and 2011, to expand access and improve quality in the state's pre-k program, which is the nation's largest. But even as TEA pushes to increase investments in pre-k, another state agency, the Texas Workforce Commission, which administers child care funding programs, seems to be backtracking on both access and quality. According to the Texas Early Childhood Education Coalition, TWC has failed to allocate needed state funds for childcare quality enhancement efforts--and unless the state invests in those activities it may lose matching federal funds, too. This could result in some 35,000 Texas children losing access to services that the Texas Early Education Model provides to improve educational quality in child care, Head Start, and preschool settings across the state. Early education advocates in the state are concerned that this signifies a problematic shift in TWC's approach, away from support for childcare quality and towards a narrow focus on providing childcare "slots," regardless of quality. That would be a big step back at the same time other state agencies are taking important steps forward.