Hawaii has been awarded a $2 million federal grant aimed at increasing access to high-quality preschool programs, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced Wednesday.
The $2.07 million in funding for Hawaii via the Preschool Development Grants program was among more than $226 million awarded to 18 states in all. Five states were awarded development grants: Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Montana and Nevada while 13 received expansion grants: Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
“Expanding access to high-quality preschool is critically important to ensure the success of our children in school and beyond,” Duncan said in a prepared statement. “The states that have received new Preschool Development Grants will serve as models for expanding preschool to all 4 year olds from low- and moderate-income families. These states are demonstrating a strong commitment to building and enhancing early learning systems, closing equity gaps and expanding opportunity so that more children in America can fulfill their greatest potential.”
Under the grant program, states with either small or no state-funded preschool programs were eligible for development grants, while states with more robust preschool programs, or that have received Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grants, were eligible for expansion grants.
Through these Preschool Development Grant awards, more than 33,000 additional children will be served in high-quality preschool programs that meet high-quality standards in the first year of the program alone. States receiving grants will develop or expand high-quality preschool programs in regionally diverse communities — from urban neighborhoods to small towns to tribal areas — as determined by the state.
Preschool programs funded under either category of grants must meet the criteria for high-quality preschool programs. To support states in planning their budgets, the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services developed annual budget caps for each state that is eligible to receive a Preschool Development Grant. The departments developed grant funding categories by ranking every state according to its relative share of eligible children and then identifying the natural breaks in the rank order. Then, based on population, budget caps were developed for each category.
The grants were part of more than $1 billion in new federal and private sector investments in early childhood education announced by President Barack Obama during Wednesday’s White House Summit on Early Education. Obama also announced a new public awareness campaign called “Invest in US” in partnership with the First Five Years Fund.
The other funding announced by Obama was $750 million in new federal awards to reach more than 63,000 additional children in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Mariana Islands with high-quality early education and more than $330 million in private-sector commitments to expand the reach and enhance the quality of early education.