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 2005 Legislature

The UEN endorsed a $90 million dollar “A Down Payment Approach: Iowa Financing Strategy for a Comprehensive Early Childhood System.”  This was integrated into the Early Childhood Iowa planning process involving over 300 Iowa stakeholders and the UEN recommendations were aligned with those with the Iowa Learns Council.  This was presented in document form with talking points.  The Governor requested $39 million and these two rallying cries resulted in securing $22 million for early childhood education and specifically $4 million additional dollars for preschool programs.

2006 Legislature

Early childhood received an increase of a little over $20 million for the second year in a row with Community Empowerment receiving $15 million of the $20 million.

While monies for early childhood are increasingly difficult to obtain, the needs of our young children and their families grows more acute.  The UEN will continue to seek support for increased funding and has identified early childhood as a continued legislative priority.  The UEN is interested in “funding being provided to ensure that all four year olds have access to a voluntary, high quality public school pre-school program.  They do not wish revenue to be diverted from current k-12 funding resources and believe it should be allocated through public school districts to literacy-based programs with well articulated standards to assure high quality.  The UEN also requests the Governor and General Assembly to support a comprehensive early childhood program that assures every child beginning at birth will be healthy and successful.”