Seattle Forward

Pre-K Education Lifts All Children

(This post first appeared today at Seattletimes.com.) We are failing to prepare all of our children for a successful life, a reality that creates injustice and social inequity, harms our long-term economic prospects, and costs all of us a lot of money. This tragic fact is most evident when we look at education achievement.

Less than half of Seattle’s low-income children and children of color are ready to begin their formal education when they walk through the door of their kindergarten classrooms, meaning they lack basic, age-expected social-emotional development, and language, cognitive, literacy and math skills. These facts are sadly clear in the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) completed each year in the first few weeks of kindergarten.

This prekindergarten preparedness failure continues into the elementary grades, too. Only about one-third of children of color in grades three to eight in Seattle Public Schools can pass basic proficiency tests in reading and math. More than three-fourths of their white peers

Caring for Seattle's Children

“Child poverty is an open sore on the American body politic. It is a moral failure for our nation that one-fifth of our children live in poverty,” so wrote Nicholas Kristof in Sunday’s New York Times.

Of course, he’s right. It is a disgrace that the “lottery of birth” has such devastating impact on our children, including right here in Seattle.

There is good news to report, however.

In Seattle, we have strategically assembled a “continuum of care” from birth to age five, implementing a strong series of proven, evidence-based solutions to help our kids have a strong and fair start and to make sure they are ready to thrive when they reach kindergarten. As the City Council prepares to vote on next year’s budget in the coming weeks, I’m asking my colleagues on the Council to strengthen this continuum of care even more.

Why is this so important?

Growing the Professional Early Learning Workforce

One of the most important elements of high-quality preschool is a professional teaching workforce. As the Mayor and the Council researched and developed the standards for the Seattle Preschool Program (SPP), requiring professional degrees was a common thread among other programs with proven positive child outcomes.

SPP requires a bachelor’s degree for lead teachers and, for assistant teachers, an associate’s degree or two years of relevant coursework. When a provider joins SPP, its staff are given several years to meet this requirement. Funds are reserved within the SPP budget to provide tuition support for these teachers.

Recognizing the need for a steady pipeline of well-trained preschool teachers, the Seattle Colleges have launched a new B.A.S. degree for Early Childhood Education. It is a great example of our higher educational institutions stepping up to creatively meet a growing workforce need. They put together a video highlighting this program and its impact:

On a related note, there was an excellent article recently in the Seattle Times about local community organizing work undertaken in the Somali community around meeting Washington State’s quality standards for child care providers. Take a look here.

The Importance of Naming

Sometimes it is important to identify things, to name them, to call them out. Naming allows us to remember. It gives us a reference point, focuses our attention.

The Orlando attack very early in the morning on June 12 on Pulse, a gay nightclub, is one of those times. It was hate aimed at a specific population, our sisters and brothers in the LGBTQ and Latino communities. The man who committed this horrific hate crime killed 49 people and injured dozens more.

Hate crimes target LGBTQ people more than any other group. The New York Times reported last week that the FBI

Two Cities, Two Children, Two Very Different Paths

The following article was sent out in my City View Newsletter, which you can sign up to receive here.

Ella is three months old, a firstborn child. She lives with her family in Seattle zip code 98118 in the Rainier Beach neighborhood in the city’s far southeast corner. Her mom and dad both work two jobs to make ends meet but still fight to rise above the poverty line. As new parents, they struggle with the challenges, wonder where they will find affordable, high-quality childcare to match their different shifts. Ella faces a mountain of obstacles as she begins her life.

Olivia is also three months old, also the firstborn in her little family. She lives in Seattle zip code 98117 in the Ballard neighborhood at the opposite northwest corner of the city. Olivia’s parents each have high paying jobs with flexible hours, leaving her at a private childcare center on her mom’s route to work. Olivia receives more support than she knows; she’s lucky to be living in Ballard.

Ella’s and Olivia’s zip codes are different by just one digit; their likely life trajectories are worlds apart.

Sadly, and to our long-term detriment, not every child born in Seattle receives the same opportunity for a strong

The Seattle Preschool Program Starts Strong

My Council committee received an encouraging report this morning about the launch of the Seattle Preschool Program. Voters approved this program with overwhelming support last year and the City had an ambitious timeline to open the first classrooms this fall.

The City’s Department of Education and Early Learning told us this morning how many kids have enrolled and who they are. You can view the slides here.

Here are a few of my key takeaways:

• The City has enrolled 288 kids in 15 classrooms, exceeding our goal of 280 kids in 14 classrooms.
• All eligible 4 year olds who applied have been offered a seat in one of this year’s classrooms.
• The program has done an excellent job in reaching a racially and economically diverse group of families across all of its classrooms.
• More than three-quarters of this year’s participants are below 300% of the Federal Poverty Line (about $73,000 for a family of four), which means they get a full tuition subsidy.
• Nearly half of the children in the program come from families that would not have qualified for the Federal Head Start program but still qualify for free tuition in the City’s program. Valuable tuition relief is being provided to these working families.

Final Decisions on 2016 Budget

The Full Council voted to adopt the City’s 2016 budget today, incorporating changes Councilmembers have made from the Mayor’s proposal over the last two months.

The Mayor’s proposed budget provided us with a good start, including funding for a hospital-based gun violence intervention program at Harborview Medical Center.

I’m happy to report that all of the items I pushed for were adopted into the Council’s final package. These included funding to study an educational center for immigrants and refugees with foreign professional degrees, increasing dedicated funding for arts programs, support for small manufacturers, advancing a study to incentivize shared parking facilities in private buildings, expanding funds for the reentry and job assistance program Career Bridge, and language to direct City staff to work with Seattle Public Schools on student population growth planning.

I also have been working closely with community leaders and Councilmember Harrell to provide City support for a new “Opportunity Center” in southeast Seattle. This budget will provide nearly $2 million in seed funding for this project, which is expected to include job training, affordable housing, meeting space, or other amenities a community-led process will help determine.

Round 1 Budget Proposals

Budget deliberations have kicked into high gear here at City Hall. The first deadline for proposals to secure a baseline support of three councilmembers comes this Wednesday. After a couple more rounds of discussion over the next three weeks, the proposals that receive majority support will be put together in a balanced budget package.

Earlier I wrote about what I liked in the Mayor’s budget. Here are some additional proposals I’m excited to advance for further consideration by the Council:

Education Funding: The State in Contempt

Yesterday the Washington State Supreme Court found the State in continued contempt of the Court’s order to provide full funding for education. Good for the Court! “Ample provision for the education of all children” is the State’s “paramount duty” according to the Washington State Constitution.

The Supreme Court imposed monetary sanctions for the first time: a fine of $100,000 a day until the State adopts a plan for full compliance. Leaders of the State Legislature are meeting Monday to discuss the work ahead.

Here is the conclusion of the Court’s order:

“Given the gravity of the State’s ongoing violation of its constitutional obligation to amply provide for public education, and in light of the need for expeditious action, the time has come for the court to impose sanctions. A monetary sanction is appropriate to emphasize the cost to the children, indeed to all of the people of this state, for every day the State fails to adopt a plan for full compliance with article IX, section 1 [of the State Constitution]. At the same time, this sanction is less intrusive than other available options, including directing the means the State must use to come into compliance with the court’s order.”

First Seattle Preschool Program Providers Selected

Mayor Murray announced today the first providers selected to participate in the Seattle Preschool Program. It is a strong group of high quality preschool providers. You can read the Mayor’s release here.

This is an exciting moment. Full day, affordable, high quality preschool will become a reality for hundreds of Seattle families this September, then thousands more in the coming years.

Seattle purposefully chose a “mixed delivery” method for its program, meaning the City is partnering with multiple providers who meet the City’s quality standards to deliver early learning opportunities across Seattle. This approach allows the City to be flexible and allows providers who are well connected in their communities to play a large role in the program. The City provides funding and coaching to the providers along the way. The Seattle School District may also be one of these providers, but the School Board won’t make a final decision on its participation until next month.

As I’ve written before, high quality preschool is an investment to make certain Seattle children have a fair and strong start. It will change lives and it will change the future of this city.