While President Obama’s proposal to make preschool universally accessible is being pushed on the federal level, six states in the country – Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, and West Virginia – are already working on such plans. Maine is poised to join that group with a bipartisan bill introduced on May 17, as Education Week reports:

The legislation would set up a framework for early-childhood education and aims to have the plan in place by the start of the 2017-18 school year, a press release from the Senate Democrats states.

Currently, 60 percent of Maine’s school districts offer preschool, the Associated Press reports. About 4,500 4-year-old attend such programs—32 percent of the eligible population. […]

[State Senate Majority Leader Seth] Goodall’s bill would offer up more than $1 million for the initiative. The money would be parceled out to school districts which would then develop or expand early-childhood offerings. A new position would also be created at the state’s Department of Education to oversee such an effort.

The state legislature is dominated by Democrats in both houses, but the biggest hurdle will be getting Gov. Paul LePage (R) on board. Education Week pointed out that in the past he has been in favor of privatization and most interested in funding for grades 1-3.

Expanding early childhood education has a big impact on children, who can see $11 of economic benefits over their lifetimes for every dollar spent on the programs. They are more likely to stay in school and go to college and less likely to become teen parents or commit violent crimes. It also has an important effect on the economy at large, which can see $7 in savings for every dollar spent. One study of universal programs found they increase human capital and national gross domestic product.

But many states have actually been cutting back on spending for these programs. States are spending the lowest amount per child in Pre-K in a decade, and last year was the largest drop in funding ever. Overall, the U.S. falls behind most developed peers in the percentage it spends on early childhood education.

North Carolina’s state House approved a change to the eligibility criteria for its free Pre-K program on Tuesday, potentially cutting the number of children served in half, reports WRAL:

Under current law, a 4-year-old is considered at-risk and eligible for the program if his or her family makes less than 75 percent of the state’s median wage, or about $39,000 a year for a family of three. Children are also eligible if they have an active-duty military parent, limited English proficiency, developmental problems or chronic illness. […]

The proposal would reduce the family income threshold to the federal poverty level, about $19,500 for a family of three. Children with limited English proficiency or chronic illness also would no longer be automatically eligible.

More than 60,000 children are eligible under the current guidelines, but the new criteria would cut that number by about 31,000.

Meanwhile, its neighbor to the south, South Carolina, is moving in the opposite direction: Legislation that passed out of a state Senate subcommittee would expand access for low-income children to a pilot program that offers full-day Pre-K classes.

Unfortunately, though, North Carolina is part of a national trend: States are cutting back on preschool funding, spending the lowest amount per child in a decade. Overall, the U.S. lags behind most other developed countries when it comes to spending and enrollment in preschool.

Yet the economic benefits of spending money on these programs are huge. Research shows that every dollar spent on high-quality universal preschool programs can return $7 to $11 in economic benefits. Rather than leave the states to create a patchwork of access, President Obama has proposed $75 billion to fund the expansion of preschool programs to make them available to all children.

Legislation that would expand access for low-income children to full-day pre-kindergarten classes advanced in the South Carolina state senate last week, as a subcommittee voted to send the legislation to the full Senate Education Committee.

The bill would expand a pilot pre-kindergarten program started in 2006, an effort Democrats and education advocates have pushed since it began. Republicans have opposed the expansion in the past but are now offering support, and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman (R) could include it in his budget plan, NECN reports:

The powerful senator acknowledged he’s considering adding the first year of a phase-in to the 2013-14 Senate budget plan his committee is crafting this week. Sen. Wes Hayes, chairman of the education subcommittee, was more direct. Before the vote, he stressed that Leatherman is “extremely supportive” of the idea and is looking to put $20 million in the budget.

That would nearly double what the state currently spends on a program that benefits about 4,700 children in three dozen districts that sued the state 20 years ago over education funding. That limited program was the Legislature’s response to a December 2005 court order that the state do more in the early years to help overcome the effects of poverty.

The state’s superintendent of education still opposes the legislation because he contends that the benefits of early childhood education don’t last. But studies have shown that at-risk children who receive early childhood intervention are less likely to drop out of school, commit violent crimes, or become teen parents — and more likely to attend college — than at-risk children who don’t. And efforts to make preschool universal in states like Georgia and Oklahoma have produced significant economic benefits by reducing societal and government costs and boosting educational attainment.

While other states, like South Carolina, have pushed to expand existing programs or create new ones, President Obama took preschool to the national stage in April when he proposed $75 billion in funds to expand access to preschool nationwide. The United States currently enrolls fewer children and spends less on preschool than other developed countries, but Obama’s plan would allow the federal government to partner with states to expand access to low-income children in an effort to close those gaps. Though Republicans have led the push for expanded preschool in some states and finally joined that push in others, Republicans in Congress have thus far voiced little support for Obama’s proposal.

The United States is lagging far behind much of the developed world when it comes to enrolling children in preschool programs, ranking 24th and 26th among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in the enrollment and three- and four-year-olds, respectively.

While the U.S. enrolls just just 69 percent of its four-year-olds and 51 percent of its three-year-olds, other countries enroll nearly all of their young children in preschool programs. But it isn’t just enrollment where America falls behind — it also fails to keep up in other areas, such as when children begin school, how much it spends on preschool, and the teacher-to-child ratio in its early childhood education programs, as this infographic from Juliana Herman, Sasha Post, and Scott O’Halloran at the Center for American Progress shows:

The gap between the U.S. and other countries leads to gaps in achievement later on in childrens’ lives: Japan, for instance, enrolls nearly all of its four-year-olds in preschool programs and outscored the U.S. by 40 points on the latest international test of fourth-grade math, CAP notes. In the U.S., state-level pre-kindergarten programs have led to substantial gains for children compared to those who don’t receive early childhood education. Children in Tennessee’s state-funded program, for instance, “saw a 75 percent improvement in letter-word identification, a 152 percent improvement in oral comprehension, a 176 percent improvement in picture vocabulary, and a 63 percent improvement in quantitative concepts.”

But the U.S. isn’t just lagging behind countries it traditionally competes with. Emerging industrialized countries are also setting loftier goals and standards for the enrollment of children in public preschool programs, while the U.S. hasn’t followed the same path:

President Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget seeks to close those gaps by including $75 billion to expand high-quality preschool programs that would bring the U.S. closer to the levels of enrollment seen in other industrialized countries. That would benefit millions of children, who are less likely to drop out of school, become teenage parents, or commit crimes when they receive early childhood education. It would also help the American economy, since preschool boosts human and social capital and the nation’s gross domestic product.

The benefits of preschool for children, their families, and the economy have been well documented, but states are decreasing, not expanding, funding for those programs. A new report finds that states are spending the lowest amount per child in Pre-K in a decade and that funding for preschool programs saw the largest drop ever last year:

Per-student funding for existing programs during that year dropped to an average of $3,841 for each student. It was the first time average spending per student dropped below $4,000 in today’s dollars since researchers started tracking it during the 2001-02 academic year.

Adjusted for inflation, per-student funding has been cut by more than $1,000 during the last decade. […]

The report notes that this has also led to lower outcomes in these programs:

In all, only 15 states and the District of Columbia spent enough money to provide quality programs, the researchers concluded. Those programs serve about 20 percent of the 1.3 million enrolled in state-funded prekindergarten programs. […]

Nationally, 42 percent of students — or more than a half million students — were in programs that met fewer than half of the benchmarks researchers identified as important to gauging a program’s effectiveness, such as classrooms with fewer than 20 students and teachers with bachelor’s degrees.

These numbers come on top of cutbacks in other early childhood programs. Sequestration has forced Head Start programs to drop children. States have widely pulled back on funding for childcare assistance, leaving families worse off than they were a decade ago. This leaves the parents of young children few options for quality care during critical years.

In fact, the United States ranks at the very bottom when it comes to spending on early childhood education among developed countries. This helps fuel a growing trend of disparity in educational outcome by income. As Sean F. Reardon, a professor of education and sociology at Stanford, has found, the gap in test scores between the rich and the poor is about 40 percent larger than 30 years ago. This means that the gap in SAT scores between a child whose family makes $15,000 a year and one whose family makes $165,000 is 125 points, up from 90 points in the 1980s and double the gap between white and black children.

President Obama has proposed a plan to make preschool universally accessible and included $75 billion in his budget proposal to get it off the ground. This would help plug the gaps in quality and access between states and thus improve educational outcomes for those children while creating positive effects for the economy in the long term.

President Obama proposed a vast expansion to early childhood education programs during his State of the Union address in February, saying he wanted to work “with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.” The budget plan he released today follows up on that promise, allocating $75 billion in new funding over the next decade to partner with states and help expand access to low- and middle-income children who aren’t currently enrolled in preschool programs.

Obama’s plan would partner with states to help “provide all low- and moderate-income four-year-old children with high-quality preschool, while also incentivizing States to expand these programs to reach additional children from middle-class families and establish full-day kindergarten policies.” Overall, the budget spends $90 billion on the Preschool for All initiative and an expansion in home visiting for children. The programs are financed through a $0.94 increase in cigarette and tobacco taxes.

The U.S. ranks among the worst of industrialized countries when it comes to funding early childhood education, and it especially fails to help low-income children. “Nationwide 60 percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in preschool, compared to less than 50 percent of children below the poverty line,” according to the Center for American Progress’ Juliana Herman and Melissa Lazarin, meaning there are more than a million low-income children not receiving any preschool education across the country. And while many states have expanded programs, they still aren’t reaching enough children, as this map from Herman, Lazarin, and Sasha Post shows:

Addressing those gaps, as Obama’s preschool expansion seeks to do, will have benefits for both children and the nation’s economy. At-risk children who receive early childhood education are less likely to drop out of school, become teen parents, and commit violent crimes; they are more likely to attend college. A study of Chicago’s universal program found that it generates $11 in economic benefits for each dollar originally spent; studies of other programs have generated $7 in long-term savings for each dollar spent. And investing in children early is proven to increase social and economic mobility and human capital while reducing economic costs in the future.

States have led the effort to expand preschool programs, and they would continue to do so under Obama’s proposal. But, as Herman and Lazarin explain, federal funding “could help jumpstart preschool programs in states without adequate preschools and could also help states with programs reach the lowest-income children. This would free up state dollars to expand access for higher-income children and improve program quality.”

President Obama used his State of the Union address to call for expanded education funding that would help extend preschool to all American children, saying he wanted to work “with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.” Today, the administration indicated that they will include funding for a universal preschool program in the budget proposal it will release next week.

Obama’s budget, the New York Times reports, will increase taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products to pay for expanded funding for universal preschool:

Mr. Obama will propose other spending and tax credit initiatives, including aid for states to make free prekindergarten education available nationwide — a priority outlined in his State of the Union address in February. He will propose to pay for it by raising federal taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Further details, including how much funding Obama’s budget will put toward the program, are unclear. The Center for American Progress outlined a plan early this year that would make preschool free for families that earned up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line while providing grants to families above that threshold that would cover between 30 percent and 95 percent of the total cost. The CAP plan, according to its estimates, would cost roughly $98 billion over the next decade.

Universal preschool would come with substantial benefits for both the economy and the children it serves. Children who do not receive early childhood education are more likely to drop out of school, become teen parents, or get arrested for violent crime. They are less likely to attend college. Universal programs enacted in states and cities have shown benefits: a study of Chicago’s program, for instance, found that it generated “$11 of economic benefits over a child’s lifetime for every dollar spent initially on the program.” Other studies have shown that the programs boost both human capital and the nation’s gross domestic product while also reducing societal and economic costs later in children’s lives.

This investment is also needed, particularly at a time when budget cuts have reduced funding for Head Start and other early education programs. According to the Organization for Economic Development, the United States currently ranks near the bottom for spending on early childhood education compared to other advanced democracies.