The chairman of the Senate education committee said some senators are concerned about the bill–which would create a five-county pilot preschool program–due to its cost and connection to the state’s private school voucher system.
Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, said the benefits of preschool are too important to ignore for Indiana to remain one of 10 states that doesn’t put state funding into the programs.
Challenges for Ted Maple, formerly in charge of early-childhood education for the United Way, include keeping the venerable child care provider and its $10 million budget in the black.
Public and private school advocates displayed rare unity Wednesday in support of preschool for Indiana children but split over an effort to give children school vouchers once they complete preschool.
House Republican leaders toured an Indianapolis preschool Wednesday, one day before the House Education Committee takes up a proposal to give preschool vouchers to low-income families in a small number of cases.
Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma plans to spearhead efforts to create a new statewide jobs council and give families scholarships so children can attend preschool as part of an agenda focused on fighting Indiana’s stubborn unemployment rate by closing the state’s “skills gap.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg said he wants the state to begin educating students before kindergarten.
By gutting its central office, Indianapolis Public Schools could free up $188 million to provide universal preschool, to pay key teachers more than $100,000 a year and to transform itself into a network of autonomous “opportunity” schools.
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has received a three-year, $700,000 grant from the PNC Foundation to renovate its early childhood exhibit, Playscape. It is the first major gift the foundation has made in Indianapolis.
