BATON ROUGE, La. -- State lawmakers are being criticized for cutting funding for early childhood education.
Young children were put in the street to block traffic by adults who say they want all 4-year-olds to have access to Pre-Kindergarten classes.
Members of the Tambourine and Fan organization gathered its young children in the midday heat to block traffic on North Rampart Street.
The club was created to teach children about dance, culture and heritage, and to keep them off the streets away from drugs and crime.
Now the group teaches young people about civil rights, leadership and political engagement. And at issue for Wednesday's protest was the lack of good early education.
"We want Pre-K to be not dealt with like it's a cartoon. It's a crucial life experience for young people who come out of situations that's been ruptured by (Hurricane) Katrina. But the moneys and the over crowdedness in the school, that first step is essential and it's not being done," said a passionate Jerome Smith, an adult leader in Tambourine and Fan.
Smith said he's been protesting civil rights for decades, and he wants the media to ask education leaders questions about the lack of pre-school services for children. So we did.
And people in the education system agree, Pre-K is crucial -- but they say the problem is a lack of funding.
Smith specifically wanted us to talk to the Superintendent of the Recovery School District, Paul Vallas, and when we did, he agreed with the issue.
"When you include a cradle to the classroom, we are barely serving a third of the kids who are at risk who need to be served, and that's really a tragedy," said Vallas.
Vallas not only is an advocate for Pre-K, but says the studies show learning should start even earlier than four years of age.
"I've seen studies that suggest perhaps as much as 60 to 70 percent of the brain development occurs before the age of four.
But he said the state cut early childhood education funding in half because of budget problems, even though state education leaders believe in its value. And to make matters worse, he said the state has not cut the strict Pre-K mandates.
"So what they have is, they have a gold-plated program in terms of the mandates but then they are funding the program as if it is a program for paupers," he explained.
So now he is working to have the mandates relaxed so there can be more creative teaching flexibility, and also to restore state funding and to get federal grants.
Vallas said he is looking at creative ways to work on Pre-K classes with the Charter Schools, which he said are also underfunded.
And he is hoping the Louisiana legislature will restore Pre-K funding before the session is over in three weeks.
