New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had this to say about Chicagos Rahm Emanuel yesterday: “He didn’t come into office at an easy time in Chicago, but as is typical of Rahm, he turned things around with a focus and an energy that became irresistible, and he’s making change happen ... What he’s doing with early childhood education, what he’s doing to address wages is extraordinary and one of the inspirational parts of today’s meeting.” On the early childhood education bit, Emanuel recently said he wanted to offer pre-school to an additional 1,500 4-year-olds who would qualify for free or reduced lunch. Folks in the mayors office told Catalyst this morning they expect to announce how theyll pay for it in the coming weeks. Whats interesting is during this last school year, nearly 1,000 fewer 4-year-olds attended CPS preschools, when compared to the previous year. Catalyst had reported last year on how the centralization of enrollment was having a negative impact on families ability to sign their children up. Were still trying to get enrollment data on the different kinds of early childhood education options around the city (not just those administered by CPS), and how the numbers have changed since Emanuel came into office. Well report on that when we have the data. But the mayor assured yesterday that his goals on increasing access to early childhood education have nothing to do with politics. “My goal is not to address the skeptics, but to address the opportunity for the people,” he told the Tribune. “My first budget we worked on 7,000 more kids in kindergarten. Then we went universal last year. That wasn’t any particular season. My question to everyone else is, why wasn’t Chicago doing this?’” chicagotribune/news/local/politics/chi-emanuel-heads-to-nyc-to-talk-minimum-wage-prek-education-20140810-story.html#page=1
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:20:52 +0000
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