The folks in San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro’s office are continuing to collect praise for their city-run Pre-K 4 SA preschool program, including a high-five from an Obama administration official.
George Sheldon, the acting assistant secretary for the division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, which administers Head Start, told reporters during a visit to the Tynan Early Childhood Education Center April 24 that he was impressed by the city’s investment in preschool education, the San Antonio News-Express stated.
The Pre-K 4 SA program—a partnership between the city and seven of its 15 school districts&mdash:aims to deliver gold-standard academics to 22,400 poor children over eight years starting in August. Some $248 million will be invested during that time; the money was raised via a tax increase in November.
I traveled to San Antonio earlier this spring to check out the program and wrote about it in two stories listed here. My sidebar about the politics of finding support for the program is located here.