Matthew Tully: Senate ready to gut Gov. Mike Pence’s preschool bill

Despite several weeks of messiness and dust-ups, the 2014 session of the Indiana legislature still has a chance to do something important, something crucial and meaningful.

Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that it won’t.

The Senate Education and Career Development Committee will meet Wednesday afternoon to debate the fate of House Bill 1004, a modest proposal to create a state-funded preschool pilot program for low-income 4-year-olds. But Senate leaders have already crafted a plan to gut the bill and replace it with a plan to further study the issue and its financing this summer. It’s another disappointing blow for advocates of early learning in Indiana.

Although the bill is modest in scope, it would be monumental for Indiana, where lawmakers have long declined to join the lengthy list of states that see value in making sure its most vulnerable children are prepared to succeed in kindergarten. The arguments for the bill are strong: Numerous studies have shown that low-income children who attend preschool are better prepared once they enter the K-12 arena, and other studies have tied preschool spending to long-term savings on everything from public assistance to remedial programs in high school.

The Republican-led House of Representatives has made the issue a priority in the past two sessions, and Gov. Mike Pence jumped on board this year after spending a chunk of 2013 visiting preschool programs that serve at-risk children and coming to the conclusion that too many kids who lack access to such programs find themselves tragically behind, socially as well as academically.

Not giving up

But the forces of opposition are strong in the Statehouse. And they reside most notably in the Indiana Senate, where powerhouse Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, has been skeptical about the idea. He has questioned the estimated $10 million per-year cost of the program and the governor’s idea of crafting the preschool policy this year and then addressing funding for it during next year’s budget-writing session.

Pence and House Republicans aren’t giving up, but the Senate opposition presents a daunting, perhaps game-ending obstacle this session.

The governor’s plan seems reasonable, as it would allow the state to perfect the mechanics of the policy so that the program can take off shortly after the funding is secured. But it goes against tradition at the Statehouse. Sadly, sometimes that’s all that matters.

In a committee hearing earlier this session, Kenley asked whether the Pence timeline would give the preschool program “special treatment” when the next two-year state budget is crafted next year. The answer would seem to be yes, and that’s actually a positive, not a negative.

Kenley said he told Pence on Tuesday that “I have some reservations about the cost but if we can get all this settled (this summer) I will help this program move forward” in next year’s session.

Unfortunately, next year seems to be the mantra at the Statehouse, and this change, if successful, would once again guarantee that Indiana lags behind while states such as West Virginia and Oklahoma — yes, West Virginia and Oklahoma — emerge as national leaders on the issue of early learning.

“It’s not good news,” House Education Chairman Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, said of the potential changes to the bill.

It’s frustrating to see such a fight over a bill that, in truth, isn’t nearly ambitious enough. The pilot program would serve perhaps 1,000 children. According to the state, roughly 25,000 Indiana 4-year-olds do not have access to high-quality preschool programs.

It’s an Indiana tragedy, and while there is no perfect solution, there are steps that can be taken to give those students a better opportunity to succeed. At the top of the list is access to high-quality preschool programs.

But the Senate stands in the way.

Responding to critics

Critics point to studies that show academic gains from federally funded Head Start preschool programs often declined as students reached later grades. That’s a fair point. But the goal of preschool should be to prepare students for kindergarten. If test scores fade by third or fourth grade, then we need to focus on what happens after the students leave preschool. And, Sen. Pete Miller, the bill’s Senate sponsor, said, “we’re not talking about Head Start. This would be our own program. A better program.”

The research on preschool benefits is stronger than many suggest. In a report last fall, the Society for Research in Child Development found both short-term academic gains and “long-term effects on important societal outcomes such as high-school graduation, years of education completed, earnings, and reduced crime and teen pregnancy.”

There is an urgent need for Indiana to act, but that urgency is lacking in the state Senate.

“We’ve got to convince Sen. Kenley of the long-term cost benefits,” Behning said.

The savings are important; the state should indeed spend its education money as efficiently as possible. But this debate isn’t only about money. It’s also about finding ways to make sure that more Indiana children can walk into kindergarten with at least a fighting chance at success.

Email me at matthew.tully@indystar.com. Follow me on Twitter: @matthewltully.