Alabama Senate Approves $25 Million Pre-K Expansion

The Alabama State Senate today approved a $25 million expansion of the state’s high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten program for four-year-olds in the FY 2020 Education Trust Fund Budget. Senators approved the measure by a vote of 28 to 2.

The increased funding for Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program, which still must be approved by the Alabama State House of Representatives, would allow the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education to add more than 200 classrooms next year and help bring the total number of First Class classrooms statewide to nearly 1,300. This amount would allow almost 40 percent of all four-year-olds to attend the voluntary program. The Senate also approved an additional $1.8 million to help ensure all First Class Pre-K teachers receive a pay raise at the same level as their K-12 counterparts.

Members of the Alabama School Readiness Alliance’s business-led Pre-K Task Force welcomed today’s committee action.

“Students who attend Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program are outperforming their peers in reading and math on state assessments regardless of demographics, where they live or what school that they attend,” said Bob Powers and Mike Luce, co-chairs of the Alabama School Readiness Alliance Pre-K Task Force. “Investing in more high-quality pre-k classrooms across the state is a proven strategy that can help more Alabama students succeed. We are grateful for the Alabama Senate’s overwhelming, bipartisan support for pre-k expansion, and we encourage the Alabama House of Representatives to approve the Senate-passed level of funding for the program.”

The ASRA Pre-K Task Force consists of more than 60 prominent leaders from the business, education, civic, medical, legal, philanthropic, military and child advocacy communities. The Pre-K Task Force first proposed expanding voluntary pre-k access to all families in 2012. Since then, state leaders have incrementally increased the level of investment in Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program from $19 million to $96 million. In 2012, the program enrolled just six percent of Alabama’s four-year-olds. In the 2018-19 school year, 32 percent of Alabama’s four-year-olds attend First Class Pre-K.