The Office of Child Development and Early Learning’s (ODCEL) Program Reach and Risk Assessment for Fiscal Year 2015-2016 provides useful information about the early learning landscape in Pennsylvania (PA). Users can download county-level data about the number of children served by various programs and learn about the risk factors for school failure. We mined the report’s data and found the following results for the Commonwealth in 2016:
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The Nurse-Family Partnership, Parent-Child Home Program, and Parents as Teachers served 14,341 children across the Commonwealth by promoting early literacy and school readiness through reading and play.
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Healthy Families America served 259 children by helping families with histories of trauma, violence, mental health and/or substance abuse issues.
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Over 200,000 children in PA had access to early learning services.
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The state and federal Head Start programs reached over 33,000 children through close to 100 agencies.
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Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts provided high-quality pre-kindergarten opportunities to over 17,000 three and four-year olds in 2016.
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66 school districts offered 9,000 pre-K slots.
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Over 90,000 children aged 0 - 5 with disabilities/developmental delays received early intervention services.
As Figure 1 below illustrates, overall one-third of children under age 5 received quality early care and education services in fiscal year 2015-2016. However, when care levels are broken down, the report indicates half of preschoolers received these services compared to one out of four infants and toddlers.
Figure 1. Children who Received Quality Early Care/Education in Pennsylvania in 2016
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Children |
Preschoolers |
Infants and Toddlers |
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