Utah’s state-funded preschool program doesn’t have enough money to serve every qualifying child. It’s why the National Institute for Early Education Research ranks Utah last for 4-year-olds for the second year in a row. The state ranked 30 out of 36 for 3-year-olds.
The institute’s 2024 State of Preschool report compares state-funded programs across the 44 states and Washington, D.C., that offer them.
“We're really interested in programs that have an educational value, that are supportive of child development, that are going to have a positive cost-benefit ratio,” said Allison Friedman-Krauss, lead author of the report.
Utah’s High Quality School Readiness program pays for preschool for children who face certain risk factors, like those who are low-income, English language learners or involved in foster care. Roughly 2,000 Utah children attended preschool through the program in the 2023-2024 school year, making up 2% of 3-year-olds and 3% of 4-year-olds.
“The simple answer is, they're just not enrolling a lot of kids in their program,” Friedman-Krauss said.
Utah meets six of the 10 criteria set by the institute because of a law passed in the 2024 legislative session. That’s up from five last year and three in 2022.
The state now has consistent educational standards from birth through high school, according to Jared Lisonbee, a preschool education specialist with the Utah State Board of Education.
He noted that preschool programs that receive School Readiness funds produce kindergarteners who outperform their peers.
“When you're considering that a big portion of those programs that are district preschools have a high number of students with special needs as well as high risk factors, that makes it even more impressive, in my view,” Lisonbee said.
Still, Friedman-Krauss would like to see Utah meet more standards and invest additional money to reach more children.
“They have a long way to go to really be at the level of what we would consider a quality program that we can really expect to support child learning,” she said.
To do that, Lisonbee said it would take $24 million to fund every eligible child at every preschool that qualifies for the program. Right now, it gets $6 million from the state and $6 million from the federal government.
“Each of the grantees have let us know that there's many more students that qualify that they could serve if there was additional funding available,” he said.
For the next three years, the program will get a $2 million boost from federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds.
“It still doesn't come close at all to meeting the full need of the state,” Lisonbee said. “But incrementally, next year, there will be some more students served because of the increase in federal funding.”
A report commissioned by the Women in the Economy Subcommittee suggests Utah should double its investment in the School Readiness Initiative by cutting funding from the online UPSTART kindergarten preparation program.
The program also has other shortcomings.
It does not meet four quality standard requirements set by researchers: that the lead teacher has a bachelor’s degree, that the assistant teacher has a Child Development Associate credential, that staff have required professional development and that students have vision, hearing and other health screenings.
Lisonbee said meeting additional benchmarks is a slow and expensive process.
“We would need to receive additional funding in order for programs to provide pay to staff that would justify, or that would require, the bachelor's degree,” he said.
Roughly 4,000 Utah children attend federally funded Head Start programs, according to the institute’s report. Friedman-Krauss said it’s not unusual for a state to enroll more kids in Head Start than in state-funded programs.
If the Trump administration cuts funding for Head Start, as NPR reported it is considering, Friedman-Krauss said every state would be affected.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
