How Pre-K Can Help Military Families

The young children of our nation's men and women in uniform face many unavoidable anxieties. Military families move three times more frequently than their civilian counterparts. With each move comes changes in access to the network of family members, friends, and early care and education providers that children rely upon. Children's stress further increases when duty calls one or both parents away from home during a deployment. A parent's absence is more than an emotional hardship on a child; it means a substantial loss of time with a child's first and most important teacher. High-quality pre-k can help military families address these challenges, providing children with a sense of stability and continuity as well as the social, emotional, and academic skills needed to cope with stress and succeed in school.

Military parents also benefit from access to high-quality pre-k. Service members often cite the welfare of their children as their chief concern during deployments. Studies have shown that military parents are more focused on their critical and sometimes dangerous work when they know that their children are receiving quality care and education back home. General David Grange (Ret) puts it this way: "If the soldier knows their family is taken care of, they can do their mission."

How We Can Ensure Military Families' Pre-K Access

State policymakers have a prominent role in making sure that every military family has access to a quality pre-k program. Depending on existing programs and policies in their state, governors and state legislators should:

• Make military children eligible and a priority for state pre-k programs
  • A state with a targeted pre-k program, offered only to children who meet certain criteria, should amend eligibility guidelines to include children of Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard personnel.
  • A state implementing a pre-k-for-all program should ensure that children of Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard personnel are among the groups who receive enrollment priority during the phase-in process.
  • Officials in a state offering pre-k to military children should ensure that children are eligible to remain in the program even if a parent's duty status changes or deployment ends.
  • A state currently without a pre-k program should initiate and position pre-k pilot programs near military installations.
• Encourage collaboration with Department of Defense child care providers
  States should create policies that encourage school districts and other providers of state pre-k to collaborate with Department of Defense child care providers.
• Give a voice to military families on State Advisory Councils
  Each state should require that a military representative sits on its State Advisory Council for Early Care and Education, which must be created or designated under the provisions of the 2007 Head Start program reauthorization.
• Guarantee pre-k reciprocity from state to state
  States should work toward an agreement, similar to the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, that gives military children who start a state pre-k program the right to attend state pre-k after a move to another state, regardless of the eligibility requirements in their new state of residence. This will reduce the number of changes a military child must face with each relocation.

Local policymakers have unique means to provide essential support to military families with young children. Through their own initiatives and by tapping specialized funding sources, local authorities should:

• Educate military families about their pre-k options
  Localities or school districts should make specific agencies or staff responsible for contacting military families in the community and helping them understand the benefits of pre-k and their eligibility for publicly funded pre-k programs.
• Utilize Federal Impact Aid to fund pre-k
  School districts that have a military installation within their boundaries and have 20 percent or more of their enrollment composed of military children can qualify for Federal Impact Aid. Dollars received from this federal fund can be used to support pre-k programs.

Federal policymakers have direct influence on the policies and resources of the Armed Forces and, as such, have a special obligation to our servicemen and women. Members of Congress, the president, and executive branch agencies should:

• Expand early learning services through the Department of Defense
  Congress and the president should increase Defense Department appropriations for current early childhood services and for new pre-k grants to states. The department's high-quality child care system offers a solid foundation for pre-k. It is vital to note, however, that many military families do not live on or near military installations where this infrastructure exists.
• Prioritize use of Federal Impact Aid
  Federal lawmakers should strengthen rules for the Federal Impact Aid program to ensure that local school districts use these funds first to pay for pre-k for military children before allowing other uses.
• Add military children to targeted federal pre-k programs
  Congress and the president should empower Head Start, the federal government's quality pre-k program, to serve military children by exempting their families from current income eligibility requirements.
• Improve policy decisions with better data collection
  Congress and the president should amend the No Child Left Behind Act to ensure that data on military children is collected and analyzed as part of the law's goal of tracking all highly-mobile children.