Allegheny County To Hold Community Meetings Regarding Early Childhood Education
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Early childhood education is kids in pre-school programs hoping to get a leg up in reading and math, but funding's always an issue.
"The system we have right now is like a house of cards. When you pull one card out, it jeopardized everything that you've built," said Betty Lisowski of the River Children's Center.
In November, Allegheny County voters narrowly defeated a .25 millage increase to fund early childhood, about $25 dollars for each $100,000 of assessment that would have raised about $18 million a year.
County Executive Rich Fitzgerald opposed the property tax increase but badly wants to fund early childhood and so he empaneled a group of 26 stakeholders to explore funding alternatives, and now that group is holding a series of meetings to get the public's input on funding and other ideas.
"Some of them might include the corporate community. Might in involved philanthropy. Might involve a while lot of options," said Fitzgerald.
But Fitzgerald says funding of Pre-K is essential.
According to studies, including one by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, if a child doesn't learn to read at a proficient level by third grade, he or she will fall behind and will likely never catch-up, and are "all too likely to become our nation's lowest-income, least-skilled, least-productive, and most costly citizens tomorrow."
"And it's knowing that being able to read and to learn that opens up the whole world to people," Fitzgerald said.
Here's a list of all the community meetings:
For additional information or to sign up to attend a meeting, go to www.childrensfundcommunitymeetings.org.