Virginia is making improvements to health outcomes for children, but a new report says the state needs to expand access to preschool and Pre-K.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation's annual Kids Count report has some good news for Virginia, which is one of a handful of states to make the largest improvements in children's health outcomes.
"One area where we fell behind was on access to childcare and early learning opportunities," says Valerie Slater, chief executive officer for Voices for Virginia's Children. "That's something we at Voices have been sounding the alarm on for many years, and it's certainly something the General Assembly is aware of as well. Unfortunately, the issue just becomes more and more urgent as our affordability crisis deepens."
The report notes one area where Virginia could improve is access to preschool and Pre-K. Delegate Irene Shin is a Democrat from Fairfax County who introduced an unsuccessful budget amendment that would have invested half a billion dollars in making Pre-K universal for all four-year-olds.
"I thought the budget amendment was sort of a swing and a sledgehammer approach to trying to solve this," Shin says. "Because we really just have to go and do it and bite the bullet and understand that the returns are going to be exponentially worthwhile our initial investments here."
Another suggestion in the report is raising reading proficiency for third graders, and the document points to Mississippi as a model that other states should emulate.
