tiwabu@newsobserver.com
Gov. Bev Perdue visited Happy Face Preschool and Childcare in Raleigh this morning to announce that she's shifting $9 million from child care subsidy funds to pay for an extra 2,000 slots in the North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten program.
RALEIGH -- Gov. Bev Perdue said today she would create 2,000 slots in the state's pre-kindergarten program within weeks – the latest move in her confrontation with the legislature over pre-K for at-risk four-year-olds.
"We've chosen to do this," she said, speaking at Happy Face Preschool in Raleigh this morning. "I'm sure there will be a gnashing and grinding of teeth, but at the end of the day, regardless of what (legislators') reaction is, there will be 2,000 children who by Aug. 15 will have the preparation they need to start kindergarten prepared....That's a fight worth having."
Perdue will create the slots using $9.3 million in federal child care subsidy that has so far gone unused this year.
She spoke from an empty classroom at the five-star preschool, which has space for 82 but currently enrolls 51. The school has a certified teacher ready to start, and could add slots within a couple of weeks. Children will begin to be enrolled around the state in mid-March and will attend the program until they start kindergarten in August.
Each year, an estimated 67,000 four-year-olds would qualify for the N.C. Pre-K, formerly known as More at Four. Currently, about 24,700 children are in the program.
Last summer, following cuts to the program by the legislature, Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. ruled that North Carolina cannot impose a cap that limits pre-K for low-income children. The ruling came after a hearing in the long-running lawsuit known as Leandro, in which poor counties sued the state regarding resources for education. In the Leandro case, the state Supreme Court ruled that all children in North Carolina have the constitutional right to a sound basic education.
Part of the state's response was the creation of a pre-kindergarten program for four-year-olds.
After Manning's ruling, Perdue, a Democrat who is not running for re-election, had proposed a way to fund 6,300 new slots for the program. The legislature has not acted on her proposal.
Republican lawmakers had criticized Manning's order as judicial activism that would create a massive welfare program in North Carolina. The ruling is being appealed.
But Perdue said it was time to move ahead on the expansion of pre-K.
"It is singularly the most important thing that we can do to have children start school on a level playing field," she said.
