Seattle Forward

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.

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.

Seattle's Advanced Industries

Source: The Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution has produced an interesting report about “the Advanced Industries Sector,” the 50 industries that spend higher amounts in research and development and focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs. It categorizes these into three broader categories: manufacturing, services, and energy. On a global level, the report concludes the United States is falling behind in these areas.

The Seattle metropolitan area — with our combination of aerospace, maritime, manufacturing, tech, and research clusters — has the second largest concentration of advanced industry jobs in the country. Moreover, Seattle is one of only 14 major metro areas that are strong in the manufacturing and service categories — 16% of the region’s workers are employed in the advanced industries, well above the 9% national average. Aerospace and software publishing jobs account for half of this local figure.

The Power of Books

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

Wednesday I traveled to Emerson Elementary in the Rainier Beach neighborhood because they have partnered with Page Ahead to provide free book fairs to kindergartners, 1st and 2nd graders. Excited students got to browse a collection of picture and chapter books and choose their 12 favorites to take home at the end of the school year. It was a lot of fun.

Students participate in this program for three consecutive years, ensuring three full summers of reading.

It is a great program because it is so simple: summer reading prevents summer learning loss. Kids will read when they have easy access to books they’re interested in. But too many low-income households don’t have this access. A recent report from Stanford found that, by age 2, children from low-income families are six months behind kids in higher-income families when it comes to vocabulary knowledge.

State-by-State Preschool Rankings

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) released its 2014 State of Preschool report this week. It rates states on preschool access, public funding, and quality measures. Washington’s report card is here. Our state ranks 33^rd in access for 4-year-olds and 8^th in terms of state spending. We also met 9 out of 10 quality standards.

This Associated Press article details current efforts led by State Rep. Ruth Kagi to expand access to quality preschool around the state.

The report also gives a shout out to Seattle for moving forward with its own preschool program in its recommendations section: “When states do not adequately support high-quality pre-K, communities should act on their own as cities across the nation from New York to Seattle have already done.”

NIEER’s director, Dr. Steven Barnett, has presented to the City Council before and is a member of the team selected to evaluate the Seattle Preschool Program.

Preparing for Preschool

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

Every child in our city deserves a strong and fair start. The Seattle City Council took another step today to provide one.

The Council voted unanimously this afternoon to approve the Seattle Preschool Program Implementation Plan (C.B. 118363). The vote marks the last major milestone before the opening of the first classrooms this September.

Over the next four years, the Seattle Preschool Program will make high-quality preschool available to thousands of our littlest learners.

Why is this important to our city?

Seattle Channel Panel Discussion on Preschool

The Seattle Channel's City Inside/Out program has a new show on the implementation of the Seattle Preschool Program. I joined host Brian Callanan on a panel that included School Board Director Stephan Blandford, Jonathan Knapp of the Seattle Education Association, and Erin Okuno of the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition. You can watch below:

 

Hearing from Preschool Providers

Yesterday at my Council committee a panel of preschool providers spoke to us about their programs, the children they serve, and some of the elements that make their classrooms high-quality. It is always good to hear from those working directly with kids and it is helpful context especially as the Council continues to discuss the details of the Seattle Preschool Program implementation.

You can watch what they have to say in the video below at the 1:10:50 mark: