Idaho left early education up to families. One town set out to get universal preschool anyway

AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — After reading a book about the five senses to a semicircle of rapt 4-year-olds, Abi Hawker tells the children in her afternoon preschool class that she has a surprise for them.

She drags a small popcorn maker onto the carpet and asks them to consider: Which of their senses might be activated when she pours the kernels into the machine? When the kernels heat up? When the popcorn begins to pop?

Moments later, the children shriek with joy as the corn kernels burst.

While Hawker explains what the kids are seeing, she asks them questions that connect back to the day’s lesson. From the activity, the class transitions to snack time, stimulating two more senses: touch and taste.

A few years ago, this experience would’ve been inaccessible to nearly half of the children in Hawker’s classroom. Their families don’t make enough money to afford early childhood education. Other kids come from families who may have the means but, until recently, didn’t make early learning a priority.

Today, though, American Falls is a town transformed.

This one-stoplight farming community has seen marked improvements in family engagement, preschool access and kindergarten readiness in just the last few years — the results of a grassroots effort to support children and families.

It could not have come at a more critical time. As President Joe Biden’s efforts to expand child care support have faltered, states have been the next-best hope for addressing a nationwide crisis in early childhood education. Some, such as New Mexico, Minnesota and Vermont, have invested heavily. But others have made clear they view early care and education as an individual, not government, responsibility.

In reliably conservative Idaho, lawmakers have gone a step further. They’ve withheld statewide support for early learners — Idaho is one of the few states that does not provide funding for preschool — and rejected federal grants to improve early childhood education. Some have expressed open hostility toward early learning, including one Republican lawmaker who said he opposed any bill that makes it easier “for mothers to come out of the home” and later apologized for his remarks.

American Falls swings conservative, too. Yet the town has proudly embraced a goal that backers typically describe as “progressive”: universal preschool. Residents have rallied around a simple mantra — “read, talk, play” — and turned it into a movement.

That homegrown success has been fueled by a broader experiment spreading across the state, where communities build their own systems for early childhood education. These ad hoc projects known as “collaboratives” bring together educators, school district leaders, and nonprofit and business executives to dismantle barriers to early childhood development.

These local partnerships offer hope to families in the 25 Idaho communities and counting that have launched them. Organizers aim to prove to state lawmakers that early learning programs are good for all Idahoans and worthy of state money.

“We’re building something that they can see, feel, touch, experience in their backyards,” said Beth Oppenheimer, executive director of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, a nonprofit that champions the collaborative model. “So if you invest in early childhood, you are going to see better fall kindergarten (readiness) rates. You’re going to see families who know where to go for resources. You’re going to see children thriving.”

That’s what is on display in American Falls, the darling of Idaho’s early learning enterprise.

It started with Randy Jensen, who became superintendent of the American Falls school district in 2017. At the time, he said, kindergarten readiness rates “were like, whew, rock bottom.” To turn things around, he encouraged families to read to their children, talk with their children and play with their children every day.

Six years later, after a community-wide campaign, the concept is ubiquitous in the 4,500-person town, where half of residents identify as Hispanic. People wear “read, talk, play” shirts with pride. The message, sometimes translated to the Spanish “leer, hablar, jugar,” can be found also on decals in shop windows, pinned to office bulletin boards and on banners hung from light poles.

“It’s just part of the culture here now,” said Tennille Call, the interim director of education at United Way of Southeastern Idaho. The nonprofit supports early learning in American Falls financially and by hosting regular events where parents and children participate together in learning activities.

A small number of families in town could afford to pay out of pocket before the preschool push. Others qualified for free Head Start or child care subsidies.

But most fell into an overlooked middle category.

“They don’t have money for preschool,” Jensen said, noting his rural district has one of the highest poverty rates in the state. “They’re living paycheck to paycheck.”

The United Way stepped forward with scholarships that today support nearly 40% of the children who attend preschool in American Falls, which now has five preschools — a mix of private and public.

As the 3-year-olds in Honi Allen’s class grab their seats and get started on the art activity, she notices a few have their fists closed tightly around their crayons. She reminds them to “pinch, pinch, pinch” the utensil. They adjust their grips.

Six of the 11 children in Allen’s class this morning have United Way scholarships.

Allen has led St. John’s Preschool in a church basement for a decade but said she never had a curriculum before, just “pulled stuff off the internet.” Now, with all preschools in town using the same vetted curriculum — a change ushered in by the collaborative — she said her program’s quality has noticeably improved.

So have student outcomes. The school district’s kindergarten readiness scores, which measure early literacy skills, increased from 19.7% proficiency in fall 2019 to 40% this September — a rare story of progress made during the pandemic.

The results are sticking. Whitney Lankford’s daughter Tucker was enrolled in preschool during the first year of the collaborative. With the emphasis on quality and access, “everyone started at a higher level,” Lankford said of Tucker’s class. Now in second grade, the literacy rates for those same children are soaring.

“It’s been cool to see,” said Lankford, who works for the school district to engage more families.

Still, the work in American Falls is not finished, advocates say.

“We are very, very close to universal preschool,” Call noted. She estimates one quarter of children are not being served, down from about three-quarters five years ago.

Transportation remains a barrier. Americans Falls is the largest town in a vast but sparsely populated county.

Rebeca Worton’s older son attended preschool in American Falls last year. But her family moved to be closer to their farm in the unincorporated town of Arbon, where her 4-year-old son now attends a home-based early learning program. It’s unreasonable, she said, for her to drive 45 minutes each way for him to attend half-day preschool in town.

A handful of families are still not convinced their children need preschool. But others slip through the cracks. At a family engagement event in September, a parent was astonished to learn her 4-year-old could attend preschool for free. “Sometimes you just totally miss them,” said Tina Fehringer, principal of the preK-2 elementary school in American Falls.

As American Falls inches toward universality, other districts are taking notice.

In nearby Pocatello, with a population 12 times that of American Falls, efforts are underway to adapt and scale its neighbor’s success. T-shirts emblazoned with “read, talk, play” are showing up in schools. United Way is funding scholarships and bringing early learning providers together.

“What we’re doing is special,” said Jensen, “but it’s very replicable.”