AACF would like to thank Governor Asa Hutchinson for including $3 million in his FY 2018 budget this legislative session for our state’s Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) pre-K program—the first permanent funding increase since 2008. However, despite a major push by several pre-K legislative champions to appropriate up to $17M in additional funding, this $3M investment still falls far short of what our ABC programs need to maintain high quality and improve access for more working families. AACF and other pre-K advocates will continue to push for more permanent funding during the 2018 fiscal session and beyond. Our second priority is continuing to increase our state’s capacity for data collection and analysis, which will help build the case for further pre-K quality improvements and expansion in the future.

Keep up with our work on pre-K on our website.