Analysis shows universal pre-K in Ohio would repay its costs almost fourfold
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A paper issued last month by Scioto Analysis concluded that every dollar spent on universal pre-K in Ohio would produce $3.80 in benefits.
Unsurprisingly, most of that benefit comes in the form of greater future earnings of kids who attend pre-K and then show up to kindergarten prepared to learn, the analysis said.
'Seven dollars of every $10 of benefits generated by a universal prekindergarten program come from future labor market earnings of children,' Scioto Analysis Principal Rob Moore said in a written statement accompanying the report. 'According to the evidence we have, universal prekindergarten could be a strong long-term economic development investment for Ohio.'
The Ohio state government doesn't fund universal pre-K. Some cities, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, and Toledo, have funded pre-K programs that are less than universal.
Head Start is a federal pre-K program, but in Ohio and most other states, eligibility is generally restricted to families living at or below federal poverty guidelines. For a family of four, that's less than $42,000 a year.
Ohio near bottom in preschool spending compared to other states
The Scioto Analysis report cited research showing that universal pre-K can benefit kids from middle-income families almost as much as it does those from poor ones.
In Ohio, 57% of three and four-year-olds were enrolled in pre-K in 2022. Using the Washington State Institute for Public Policy's benefit-cost analysis of universal prekindergarten, the Scioto Analysis report modeled the impact on the economy if 71% of Ohio's preschoolers went to prekindergarten.
It found that adding 29,000 Ohio kids to the program would benefit the economy by cutting the time kids would later spend repeating grades, in prison, or needing special education. But by far and away, the biggest benefit was in kids' future earnings.
'This benefit occurs because children develop essential cognitive and social skills during prekindergarten which lead to higher academic achievement and better job prospects,' the report said.
In its draft of the biennial budget, the Republican leadership of the Ohio House has been generous to the state's wealthiest interests.
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The billionaire Haslam family wants $600 million to move the Browns out of downtown Cleveland and into a new stadium in Brook Park. House Finance Committee Chairman Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, built that funding into the budget, calling it 'a once-in-a-lifetime project.' He added that new stadiums are 'huge economic drivers.'
However, most economists who have studied them would disagree.
They say stadiums by and large don't create new spending. Instead, they shift existing discretionary spending from one part of a regional economy to another, experts say
'The empirical evidence shows repeatedly that stadium subsidies fail to generate new tax revenue and new jobs or attract new businesses,' the Tax Foundation said in an October report. 'While attending a sporting event or a concert in a new, publicly subsidized venue might benefit fans of the team or those who attend the event, those subsidies shift spending that would have occurred in other parts of the city or state in the absence of a new sports stadium or arena.'
Meanwhile, by developing intellectual capital, public education provides multifaceted benefits to the economy, experts say.
'Research shows that individuals who graduate and have access to quality education throughout primary and secondary school are more likely to find gainful employment, have stable families, and be active and productive citizens,' Dana Mitra of Pennsylvania State University said in a research report. 'They are also less likely to commit serious crimes, less likely to place high demands on the public health care system, and less likely to be enrolled in welfare assistance programs.'
However that may be, the Ohio House budget would slash funding for public education far below what's called for under a 2021 plan to make it sufficient to meet the requirements of the Ohio Constitution.
The Fair School Funding Plan calls for $666 million in new spending on public education. The Republican House budget would provide only $226 million.
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South Dakota is on track to spend $2 billion on prisons in the next decade
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They point to cases like Concordia, where the decades-old order was used to stop a charter school from favoring white students in admissions. 'Concordia is one where it's old, but a lot is happening there,' said Deuel Ross, deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 'That's true for a lot of these cases. They're not just sitting silently.' Debates over integration are far from settled Last year, before President Donald Trump took office, Concordia Parish rejected a Justice Department plan that would have ended its case if the district combined several majority white and majority Black elementary and middle schools. At a town hall meeting, Vidalia residents vigorously opposed the plan, saying it would disrupt students' lives and expose their children to drugs and violence. An official from the Louisiana attorney general's office spoke against the proposal and said the Trump administration likely would change course on older orders. Accepting the plan would have been a 'death sentence' for the district, said Paul Nelson, a former Concordia superintendent. White families would have fled to private schools or other districts, said Nelson, who wants the court order removed. 'It's time to move on,' said Nelson, who left the district in 2016. 'Let's start looking to build for the future, not looking back to what our grandparents may have gone through.' At Ferriday High, athletic coach Derrick Davis supported combining schools in Ferriday and Vidalia. He said the district's disparities come into focus whenever his teams visit schools with newer sports facilities. 'It seems to me, if we'd all combine, we can all get what we need,' he said. Others oppose merging schools if it's done solely for the sake of achieving racial balance. 'Redistricting and going to different places they're not used to ... it would be a culture shock to some people," said Ferriday's school resource officer, Marcus Martin, who like Derrick Davis is Black. Federal orders offer leverage for racial discrimination cases Concordia is among more than 120 districts across the South that remain under desegregation orders from the 1960s and '70s, including about a dozen in Louisiana. Calling the orders historical relics is 'unequivocally false,' said Shaheena Simons, who until April led the Justice Department section that oversees school desegregation cases. 'Segregation and inequality persist in our schools, and they persist in districts that are still under desegregation orders,' she said. With court orders in place, families facing discrimination can reach out directly to the Justice Department or seek relief from the court. Otherwise, the only recourse is a lawsuit, which many families can't afford, Simons said. In Concordia, the order played into a battle over a charter school that opened in 2013 on the former campus of an all-white private school. To protect the area's progress on racial integration, a judge ordered Delta Charter School to build a student body that reflected the district's racial demographics. But in its first year, the school was just 15% Black. After a court challenge, Delta was ordered to give priority to Black students. Today, about 40% of its students are Black. Desegregation orders have been invoked recently in other cases around the state. One led to an order to address disproportionately high rates of discipline for Black students, and in another a predominantly Black elementary school was relocated from a site close to a chemical plant. The Justice Department could easily end some desegregation orders The Trump administration was able to close the Plaquemines case with little resistance because the original plaintiffs are no longer involved — the Justice Department was litigating the case alone. Concordia and an unknown number of other districts are in the same situation, making them vulnerable to quick dismissals. Concordia's case dates to 1965, when the area was strictly segregated and home to a violent offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. When Black families in Ferriday sued for access to all-white schools, the federal government intervened. As the district integrated its schools, white families fled Ferriday. The district's schools came to reflect the demographics of their surrounding areas. Ferriday is mostly Black and low-income, while Vidalia is mostly white and takes in tax revenue from a hydroelectric plant. A third town in the district, Monterey, has a high school that's 95% white. At the December town hall, Vidalia resident Ronnie Blackwell said the area 'feels like a Mayberry, which is great,' referring to the fictional Southern town from 'The Andy Griffith Show.' The federal government, he said, has 'probably destroyed more communities and school systems than it ever helped.' Under its court order, Concordia must allow students in majority Black schools to transfer to majority white schools. It also files reports on teacher demographics and student discipline. After failing to negotiate a resolution with the Justice Department, Concordia is scheduled to make its case that the judge should dismiss the order, according to court documents. Meanwhile, amid a wave of resignations in the federal government, all but two of the Justice Department lawyers assigned to the case have left. Without court supervision, Brian Davis sees little hope for improvement. 'A lot of parents over here in Ferriday, they're stuck here because here they don't have the resources to move their kids from A to B," he said. 'You'll find schools like Ferriday — the term is, to me, slipping into darkness."
