Photo: Kate Samp For Strategies for Children

Here’s some good news.

Holyoke, Lawrence, and Northampton have received state funded Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI) grants that they can use to expand their preschool programs.

These towns join the first cohort of grantees: Boston, Lowell, New Bedford, North Adams, Somerville, and Springfield.

Here’s some bad news.

This fiscal year, Massachusetts has only allocated $5 million for CPPI grants. And that’s not enough to make up for the fact that federally funded Preschool Expansion Grants (PEG grants) have expired.

“Sadly, the budget did not include our primary ask of $25 million for preschool expansion,” Titus DosRemedios, Strategies for Children’s director of research and policy, writes in an Alliance for Early Success blog post. “This amount would have replaced expiring federal Preschool Expansion Grant (PEG) funds ($15 million), sustained current state-funded preschool expansion grantees ($5 million), and expanded preschool in new communities ($5 million).”

The gap between expired federal funds and the current level of state funding has created a funding lag.

DosRemedios explains:

“Now, as federal funds expire, most of the 48 PEG classrooms in five cities will close. New classrooms will open using the $5 million in state funds and informed by lessons learned during PEG implementation. But this will not occur in time to fully replace PEG. We hope this ‘preschool funding lag’ is temporary, and that the state line item for preschool expansion will continue to grow in years ahead.”

The need “is still great – 19 communities, representing 29 percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds in the state, have plans to expand preschool and most are waiting for a state grant to begin implementation. These communities could enroll 10,000 children if the funding was available.”

As an evaluation of PEG has shown, these programs had a sizable impact on children’s early literacy and early math skills, helping them prepare for continued success in school.

So while we’re excited to congratulate Holyoke, Lawrence, and Northampton, we’re also committed to advocating for more state funds so that additional cities and towns can welcome more Massachusetts children into high-quality preschools.

For a visual summary of the uneven preschool progression in Massachusetts since 2015, check out Strategies for Children’s “Recent Progress in Early Education and Care: Preschool Expansion.”