SB 6-PREKINDERGARTEN SCHOOL PROGRAMS/PLANS    8:04:08 AM CO-CHAIR THOMAS announced the consideration of SB 6 and noted that CSSB 6( ), version I, was introduced in the previous meeting. He had objected for the purpose of discussing an updated fiscal note and now they must adopt the CS in order to get the updated fiscal note. He then removed his objection and finding no further objections announced that CSSB 6 ( ), labeled 27-LS0058\I was adopted. 8:05:21 AM CO-CHAIR MEYER moved to adopt Amendment 1. 27-LS0058\I.1 Kirsch/Mischel AMENDMENT 1 OFFERED IN THE SENATE BY SENATOR THOMAS TO: CSSB 6( ), Draft Version "I" Page 6, line 9, following "receives": Insert "state" 8:05:35 AM CO-CHAIR THOMAS objected for the purpose of discussion. 8:05:46 AM LES MORSE, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Education and Early Development, Juneau, said Cynthia Curran would answer questions regarding Amendment 1. 8:05:57 AM CYNTHIA CURRAN, Director, Teaching and Learning Support, Department of Education and Early Development (DEED), Juneau, explained that language in section 9 says a school district "may not include in the average daily membership of the school students who are four years of age if the students are enrolled in a program that receives state funding other than funding under this chapter." They believe that inserting "state" allows the programs to seek other grant funding: federal or private. If that word is not there, they may be precluded from being able to do that. 8:06:51 AM CO-CHAIR THOMAS removed his objection. Finding no further objection, he stated that Amendment 1 was adopted. CO-CHAIR THOMAS asked how SB 6 might affect the Moore settlement. 8:08:21 AM MS. CURRAN answered that the assistant attorney general determined that they would be able to work through any concerns that might come up with the Moore settlement. CO-CHAIR THOMAS asked Senator French if he could review the Crime Summit information and share it with Senator Stevens after the meeting. 8:09:51 AM SENATOR FRENCH said that Senator Stevens was interested in the dollar savings that can be generated from pre-kindergarten programs in areas outside of education. In Monday's meeting, Senator French said he had talked about the beneficial educational effects in the PPVT study, the Dial-3 curves and so forth, and he wanted to note two pieces of information. One, the first Crime Summit, was conducted in Alaska and led to a Cost of Crime Study done by the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). It looked at a series of rehabilitation programs that could lower the crime rate and reduce the rate of recidivism. Surprisingly, the best program they found state-wide was Head Start. The study revealed that Head Start for young children saves six times more than it costs and reduces the future crime rate among participants by about 16 percent. He noted that it could take a while to pay off, but the dollar savings were pretty well established. 8:12:04 AM SENATOR FRENCH stated that a much more in-depth report on the same subject came from Annie Pennucci with the Washington State Institute of Public Policy. She analyzed the findings from 11 individual studies that directly measured crime outcomes and plotted the effect sizes to summarize whether there was more or less crime for pre-school students vs. non-pre-school kids, and how much less crime. The students were sometimes followed into adulthood to see if they had committed crimes. Findings from individual studies indicated a range of how much crime is avoided from preschool; one study found a very small increase, but on average, crime went down for preschool students about .23 standard deviations, a 20 percent reduction in the crime rate, which is similar to what the ISER study revealed. He said that her study qualified the costs in Washington where you can get a year and a half of preschool for about $7,295. The three most significant areas of savings are: 1) The reduced crime stemming from lower criminal justice and victims costs were worth about $6,066. 2) The educational gains stemmed from increased earnings for the individual were worth about $9,800. 3) The reductions in special education spending that you have to do for kids who go to pre-kindergarten was worth about $1,000. If you add all that up, for a $7,295 investment in pre- kindergarten you get about $21,000 back in savings, a 3:1 ratio. Those numbers jibe with State of Alaska numbers and it's good to keep in mind that pre-kindergarten pays benefits outside the typical areas people think of in the area of education. 8:13:17 AM CO-CHAIR THOMAS commented that through discussions with the Department of Corrections commissioner he found this issue was pervasive throughout the system and that the department was definitely starting to keep statistics on it. CO-CHAIR MEYER said those were interesting numbers and that even the governor's own council had indicated a definite cost savings in having a pre-K program of some sort. He asked Senator French if the Head Start Program was the best nationwide or just in Alaska and how long that had been the case. 8:14:41 AM SENATOR FRENCH answered that this was ISER looking at programs currently operating in the State of Alaska and Head Start is the number one provider here of pre-K at the time. The fact that the Washington State Institute for Public Policy sort of pulled back and looked at a series of studies across the nation combined with the local result from Alaska was just good confirmation that it's a phenomenon that is repeatable. CO-CHAIR MEYER commented that pre-K was not initiated in the past due to the lack of data tracking children from 4 years of age to age 18 to see what happened to them. But Head Start has been around long enough to have that data now. 8:16:30 AM SENATOR FRENCH said the administration deserved some credit for generating so much information during the pilot program. The data shows that pre-K education pays off in later gains in education and in other areas like reducing crime. 8:16:38 AM SENATOR STEVENS joined the meeting. CO-CHAIR MEYER commented that the administration's task force recommendations would not be ready until the June 1 and he was hoping that they would say that Head Start was the way to go. Since they don't have that information, he thought they should go forward with SB 6. SENATOR STEVENS stated that he was comfortable with what the committee had done so far and that they could move forward. 8:18:57 AM CO-CHAIR MEYER moved to report CSSB 6 ( ), version 27-LS0058\I, as amended, from committee with individual recommendations and forthcoming fiscal note(s). There was no objection, and CSSB 6(EDC) moved from the Senate Education Standing Committee.