Recent study finds Mississippi passes quality benchmarks for pre-school learning

The National Institute for Early Education has released its 2022 State of Preschool Yearbook survey. The report found that Mississippi's preschool programs met 10 of 10 quality standards benchmarks, which include teacher qualifications and classroom sizes. Based in Rutgers University, the institute regularly releases research on early childhood education policy and practice.

Steve Barnett is the founder of the NIEER. He says Mississippi's success can be attributed to legislation that improves pre-k programs.

"What we see, for example, in Mississippi is that we expect what the legislature has done this year to double access to the program." he said. "If Mississippi can keep on that pace and keep doubling the program, pretty soon you could get to the point where most kids in Mississippi have access to high quality preschool education."

The legislation Barnett references is the Early Learning Collaborative program, which the state legislature created a decade ago. Rachel Canter is the Executive Director of Mississippi First, a non-profit that advocates for quality early education.

"When we started our collaborative program 10 years ago, the first state appropriation for it was about $3 million." she said. "But since then, the legislature has expanded the program multiple times 24 million now for the state funded PRE-K program, which affects about 25% of four-year-olds."

Both Canter and Barnett believe enrollment numbers could double because of increased government spending.