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GULFPORT -- Kindergarten is not mandatory in Mississippi, but State Superintendent Carey Wright would love to see that changed. With less than a month until her one-year anniversary in the Magnolia State, Wright sat down with the Sun Herald and touched on a number of topics. What she really wanted to talk about, however, was the need for early education. "It's just frightening to think about how our children are coming in," she said. The Mississippi Department of Education is in the process of applying for a pre-kindergarten development grant from the federal government worth up to $15 million for four years. The grant could expand existing pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds by about 3,100 spots. With the number of Mississippi children living in poverty on the rise, Wright said it's imperative to open up public pre-K for families who cannot afford private pre-K facilities. This past year was the first where the state had a state-wide kindergarten readiness assessment. More than 44,000 students took the test and Wright said the results, which will soon be released to the public, are close to alarming. "If there is evidence as compelling as it could possibly be for the need for early childhood programming, it's the results of this kinder garten assessment," Wright said. The superintendent told of one instance where a district called her office asking for help because it had a child who didn't know any shapes, colors or letters. The child, she said, knew none of the basic building blocks. "We have got to have kids in kindergarten. It can't be an option," she said. "To me, if we're going to improve education in this state -- and we are -- we have got to get children into high-quality learning as quickly as we can. And then have them prepared." Asked if there's pockets of resistance in the Legislature to early childhood education that's not related to finances, Wright said she was surprised to find some people believe it's governmental intrusion into a family matter. "It was just a foregone conclusion (to me) that you went to pre-K. You didn't even think about that," she said, referring to Maryland and the District of Columbia, her last two professional stops. "When you have the level of poverty like you do in D.C. and Mississippi, the beautiful way as we all know to get children out of that is to educate them so that they have an opportunity to do something different."
Wright said the application for the pre-K grant is due Wednesday and she expects to know if Mississippi received the money by December.Related Articles:
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