After pre-K, Early Matters the smart step

In the most fundamental sense, the creation of Early Matters San Antonio is a crucial step toward upcoming voter reauthorization of Pre-K 4 SA. But it’s also an exciting opportunity to expand early childhood education across San Antonio. In approving Pre-K 4 SA by an overwhelming margin in 2012, San Antonio voters made this community a state and national leader in early childhood education. We set the tone, and Texas has followed, specifically with the passage of House Bill 3, which provides funding for full-day prekindergarten.

The noble underpinning for Pre-K 4 SA is that quality early childhood education should be accessible to all children in San Antonio, and this investment in our youth will pay dividends in our future.

So far, this vision has been made real. A longitudinal study by the University of Texas at San Antonio has found students enrolled in Pre-K 4 SA’s initial class performed well when they made it to third grade. In many ways — testing, attendance, less need for special education — they outperformed peers who did not attend Pre-K 4 SA or had enrolled in lesser programs.

It’s a no-brainer to begin building public support for Pre-K 4 SA’s reauthorization in 2020. Amen to that cause, but equally important are Early Matters San Antonio’s other missions: Expanding our early childhood education focus beyond prekindergarten to a comprehensive “birth to age 8” view, and identifying gaps in early childhood education throughout our community. “What we know is what happens even before the child is born matters a lot in terms of their success academically, socially in school,” said Kate Rogers of the Charles Butt Foundation. After all, what good is it to invest so heavily in dynamic pre-K only to have children do worksheets the next year? Why wait until pre-K when we could bring life-changing teaching to even younger children?