The debate about constitutional Amendment 4, which Hawaii voters began casting ballots on this week, doesn’t focus on whether 4-year-olds should be in preschool. ADVERTISING The debate about constitutional Amendment 4, which Hawaii voters began casting ballots on this week,
The debate about constitutional Amendment 4, which Hawaii voters began casting ballots on this week, doesn’t focus on whether 4-year-olds should be in preschool.
Both the Hawaii State Teachers Association, which opposes the proposed amendment, and folks like Deborah Zysman of Good Beginnings Alliance, which is leading the charge for it, say they see a need for children to enroll in preschool.
The real question comes down to who should be providing the instruction.
“When we talk to parents, parents say we need this,” Zysman said. “Business leaders get it. Teachers say kids aren’t starting kindergarten ready.”
But Hawaii is the only state in the country that explicitly prohibits using state money for private early childhood education. The state has some Headstart programs, which are federally funded, but because of the way the state’s constitution is written, the state can’t enforce any educational standards for those programs, Zysman said. Amendment 4 would allow the state Legislature to set aside some amount of money to bolster the state’s preschools, many of which already have waiting lists.
“Parents who can afford it send their children,” she said. “Parents who can’t, don’t.”
HSTA President Wil Okabe said his organization’s opposition comes down to questions of equity and access.
Teachers are concerned that if the money is going to private preschools, no one will be enforcing a consistent curriculum, he said.
“In the public school system, we have 200-plus teachers trained (for early childhood education),” he said, adding it would be an “easy transition” to take on the addition of preschool age children, through a program similar to the recently ended pre-kindergarten.
Also, he said, the amendment doesn’t make clear how much money will be made available, nor to whom it will be distributed or how. He said he can’t see private preschools, which are businesses, building enough infrastructure to accommodate hundreds of new preschoolers without a guarantee about how much funding they’ll get in the future.
And what if the funding doesn’t fully cover the cost of preschool, he asked.
“We all know many families are working two jobs,” Okabe said. “The neediest families can’t afford even $100 to $200 a month (for preschool).”
Zysman points out that even if the Department of Education took over preschool, the state would have to incur some new facilities costs, in the form of classrooms.
“Forty other states figured it out,” she said. “If you’re investing early, it pays off down the line.”
Email Erin Miller at
emiller@westhawaiitoday.
com.
