Patrick hit on funding for schools

A national advocacy group has targeted Governor Deval Patrick as one of six chief executives nationwide who have failed to live up to their promise to increase spending on prekindergarten education.

"No new governor entered office with a more favorable environment for pre-K for all than did Governor Patrick, and so his failure to act decisively represents an opportunity sorely missed," says the report issued by Pre-K Now, a national group that advocates voluntary preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.

Twenty-nine governors proposed an increase in prekindergarten spending for the next fiscal year, according to the report, while Patrick, who campaigned on the pledge to improve early education, level-funded the state's program, a pilot project involving 2,700 children.

"Parents, advocates, and legislators were eager for Governor Patrick to follow through on his campaign pledge to offer early education opportunities to all children in Massachusetts, and he entered office with extremely favorable legislative conditions to make this vision a reality," Libby Doggett, executive director of Pre-K Now, said in a written statement. "Despite fiscal challenges, I hope the governor takes his campaign promise to heart and proposes substantial pre-K funds next year."

During the campaign, Patrick promised to fund a universal preschool program approved by the Legislature last year but vetoed by Governor Mitt Romney because of its cost.

"Because early learning is critical to future academic success," Patrick wrote on his campaign website, "I will expand education opportunities for 3- and 4-year-olds, specifically by working to pass pending legislation that addresses this need."

But this pledge, like Patrick's promise to hire 1,000 new police officers and to expand park funding by $10 million, was scaled back soon after the election because of a looming state budget deficit. In mid-November, Patrick acknowledged that he would not be able to pay for the $600 million program right away.

In his budget, released in late February, Patrick proposed increasing spending on all-day kindergarten by 46 percent, to $39.5 million, but kept funding for the pre-K program level at $4.6 million.

Early-education advocates in Massachusetts say they are hopeful that Patrick will eventually fund the early-education program and downplayed the criticism by Pre-K Now.

"It's very helpful to have a group like this doing a state-by-state comparison," said Margaret Blood, president of Strategies for Children, a Boston early education advocacy group. "But I'm also optimistic [the governor will] move his vision forward. . . . He understands economics, that we need to make the investment, that there's a long-term payoff."

Blood, whose group receives funding from Pre-K Now, served on Patrick's transition team and is on his early-education task force.

Joe Ganley, a former aide to one of Patrick's Democratic opponents, Christopher Gabrieli, also defended the governor, saying that despite the state's gloomy financial picture, he has generally kept his pledge to spend more on education.

Since the election, Gabrieli has been working with Patrick on the governor's extended school day initiative.

"We watched the promises of our opponents pretty closely, and to say that Patrick pledged to fully fund early education immediately is just not accurate," said Ganley, who also worked for Gabrieli's educational nonprofit, Boston 2020.

"He included it in a list of things, such as longer school days and after-school programs, that he said were part of educating the 'whole child.' And in fact his budget does provide funding for all-day kindergarten and longer school days, as he said it would.

"To suggest that the governor came into office in some rosy situation where huge programs could be funded fully ignores the facts. The state faced nearly a $1 billion deficit, and the governor and the Legislature are forced to fund their priorities by allocating scarce resources."

Ann Reale, commissioner of the state's Department of Early Education and Care, said she, too, is hopeful that the pilot pre-K program will eventually expand.

"We're ready to go forward with further expansion if the money is available to us," Reale said. "We feel pretty strongly about it. This is the first year of a four-year administration, and we're optimistic for growth either in this year or in future years."

Administration officials didn't comment on the report this week, but said the governor supports a bill pending in the Legislature that creates a pre-kindergarten program, the first step toward putting into place universal preschool. The bill provides no funding.

"The governor is fully supportive of expanding high quality early education opportunities for children in Massachusetts," said Patrick spokesman Kyle Sullivan. "That is why, even after inheriting an over $1 billion deficit, he increased funding for full-day kindergarten in his budget by 46 percent."

The $12.5 million increase would fund 500 to 800 new full-day classrooms serving 12,000 to 15,000 more children, Sullivan said.

Patrick has also convened a task force to develop a long-term strategy for providing students from pre-K to Grade 12 a "top quality education," Sullivan said. "And high-quality early education and care is an important component of that vision."'

The Boston public schools already offer preschool classes to some 3- and 4-year-olds.