With Albany set to hand Mayor de Blasio hundreds of millions of dollars for a massive expansion of pre-K, wouldn’t it have been wise to first see if the city’s existing program is working?
Unless, of course, it’s not.
As it turns out, Department of Education data for at least some districts suggest some skepticism is in order.
- At the 13 elementary schools that offer pre-K in District 5 (Central Harlem), seven out of eight third-graders cannot read proficiently.
- At the 16 schools where pre-K is available in District 7 (the South Bronx), nearly nine out of 10 kids don’t make the grade.
- In District 16 (Bed-Stuy), 86 percent of the kids at the 15 pre-K schools flunked.
Moms and dads seem to know: On average, twice as many kids applied for each available pre-K seat at the city’s 200 best-performing schools than at its 200 worst.
Meanwhile, the city already has nearly 20,000 full-day pre-K students. Even with all this pre-K already in place, more than two-thirds of third- through eighth-graders citywide flunked state tests last year.
De Blasio plans to up the figure to 73,000 seats (at an added cost of more than a half-billion dollars). What we want to know is: Where’s the proof the current programs lead to any lasting gains for these kids?
“Nothing would help our children more than reaching them earlier with full-day pre-K,” more after-school programs and “making sure every great teacher is supported,” the mayor insisted this week.
But if de Blasio has the evidence to back that up, you’ve got to wonder why he has yet to produce it.