Indiana’s Free Pre-K Beset With Growing Pains
“In 2014, On My Way Pre-K represented a major milestone for the Hoosier State: Then-Gov. Mike Pence pushed an unenthusiastic legislature to send public dollars directly to pre-K for the first time, following years of baby steps to improve health and safety in early childhood programs. Pence urged his fellow Republican lawmakers to support the bill by arguing that many poor children never get on track academically: ‘They arrive in kindergarten and spend too much time trying to catch up, and when that fails, they spend too much of their lives dropping out – out of school, out of work and out of our communities,’ he said in testimony before the Senate Education Committee in 2014.”