Thrive65

Analysis

Why Early Childhood Education Matters

At a glance

District 65 will present roughly $20 million in reductions on October 13, and administrators have said programs the law does not require are under review (Evanston RoundTable, Sept. 29). Early childhood education at the Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center (JEH) is one of the programs many families are worried about.

It is clear that painful cuts are coming to slow our structural deficit. That doesn’t mean that community members should not speak up and advocate for the issues that matter most to them. Our view is that early childhood belongs near the bottom of the cut list, for four reasons:

The single most useful thing community members can ask for: the net cost to D65 of each early childhood program after grants, before any cut is decided. That net cost estimate must reflect any anticipated new costs to meet the for 3 to 5 year olds with disabilities via external collaboration or other alternatives..

Where things stand

The administration will propose a financial sustainability package at the October 13 board meeting, with board action expected in November. The package targets about $20 million in reductions by fiscal year 2028 (FY28, the 2027-28 school year) and two more school closures. Administrators have also said they are examining non-mandated programs, meaning programs that no state or federal law requires D65 to run (The Record, Sept. 18).

No specific early childhood cut has been announced. Evanston Now reported that preschool is not necessarily on the reduction list, yet 10 of 30 speakers at the September 28 board meeting raised it (Evanston Now). The idea to close JEH was raised in public listening sessions in September, sometimes accompanied with the suggestion to move the programming to neighborhood schools. Our FAQ summarizes the memo the board received from the administration last year, covering their analysis of this option (starting on page 11).

What JEH is

Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center serves children from birth to age 5 (JEH home page). It also houses general administrative staff and the facilities for the school board meetings. The district’s September 2025 SDRP III scenarios memo lists the early childhood center at 276 students, and the building has capacity for about 404, so it is roughly 68% full (D65 SDRP III School Scenarios Overview Memo, Sept. 29, 2025; Thrive65 FAQ). The JEH website gives a higher figure of about 400 children served each year, which may count children enrolled at any point during the year; ask the district which count is current (JEH Early Childhood Center page). The Family Center in the same building runs home visiting and an infant-toddler program for children from birth to age 3, at no charge to families (JEH Family Center page). The school reports 37 languages spoken among its families and a staff-to-student ratio of 1 to 4 (JEH home page).

Enrollment is not open to all comers. Children qualify based on family income or a developmental risk factor, such as a possible need for special education (D65 Report on Black Student Achievement, 2016, p. 10).

What is required, and what is optional

“Non-mandated” does not describe JEH as a whole. JEH blends several programs, each with its own funder and rules, often in the same classrooms (JEH Early Childhood Center page). One of them is required by federal law.

Program Ages Who it serves Main funding Required of D65?
Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) 3 to 5 Children with disabilities who have an IEP State grant plus federal IDEA dollars and local funds Yes. Federal law (IDEA) requires it
Head Start 3 to 5 Children from families with low incomes Federal grant (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services) No
Preschool for All (PFA) 3 to 5 Children with risk factors, mostly from families with low incomes State Early Childhood Block Grant No
Early Head Start and Doorway to Learning Birth to 3 Infants and toddlers of eligible working families Federal Early Head Start, state grant, state child care assistance (CCAP) No
Prevention Initiative (Family Center) Birth to 3 Families with infants and toddlers, mainly through home visits State Early Childhood Block Grant No

Sources: JEH Early Childhood Center page; JEH Family Center page; D65 early education enrollment page.

Why the required part matters for the optional parts

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires states to make a free appropriate public education available to every child with a disability from age 3. It also requires a “Child Find” system to locate and evaluate children who may need services (ECTA Center, Part B Section 619 overview). Every state, Illinois included, mandates these preschool services.

IDEA also expects children with disabilities to learn alongside peers without disabilities whenever possible. Federal guidance says the first placement a team should consider is the regular public preschool program the child would otherwise attend (ECTA Center, Section 619 overview PDF). At JEH, the Head Start and Preschool for All classrooms are those regular settings.

This means cutting the optional programs does not make the required obligation go away. It removes the inclusive classrooms where many children with IEPs are served, and D65 would still have to place those children somewhere appropriate. In 2021, 33% of JEH students received special education services (Daily Northwestern, Feb. 2022).

What the research shows

High-quality early learning has some of the strongest long-term evidence in education policy, and one rigorous study shows that a poorly designed program can do harm. Both facts belong in the conversation.

The biology comes first. Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child reports that more than 1 million new neural connections form every second in a child’s first few years, and that it is easier and cheaper to build strong foundations early than to repair them later (Harvard Center on the Developing Child, InBrief).

Study Who and when What it found Limits to keep in mind
Boston public pre-K lotteries (Gray-Lobe, Pathak, Walters, 2023) About 4,000 Boston 4-year-olds, 1997 to 2003, admitted by lottery Attending raised on-time college enrollment by 8.3 percentage points; raised high school graduation; reduced juvenile incarceration No detectable effect on state test scores, which is why short-term test data can mislead
Head Start, national (Bailey, Sun, Timpe, 2021) Children reached as Head Start rolled out county by county, 1965 to 1980 About 0.65 more years of schooling and higher adult economic self-sufficiency Older cohorts; today’s program and alternatives differ
Chicago Child-Parent Centers (Reynolds et al., 2002) 1,539 Chicago children born in 1980; program run inside public schools with heavy parent involvement $7.14 returned to society per $1 spent by age 21; less remedial education, juvenile delinquency, and child maltreatment Not a lottery study; groups were matched, not randomized
North Carolina Smart Start and More at Four (Muschkin, Ladd, Dodge, 2015) County-level funding across North Carolina over 13 years Together, 39% lower odds of special education placement in 3rd grade Measures community-wide funding effects, not individual children
Perry Preschool (Heckman et al., 2010) Small randomized trial, Michigan, 1960s 7% to 10% annual return to society Very small sample, one site, intensive model
Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K (Durkin et al., 2022) 2,990 children from families with low incomes, randomized by wait list Negative effects by 6th grade on test scores, discipline, attendance, and special education referrals The only large randomized study of a statewide program; researchers point to low classroom quality and overly academic instruction (Hechinger Report)

What this adds up to:

What D65’s own data shows

D65’s most detailed public analysis of early childhood and kindergarten readiness is a 2016 report by its Office of Research, Accountability and Data (D65 Report on Black Student Achievement, April 2016). The data is now ten years old, so treat it as a pattern to check, and ask the district for current figures. Its main findings:

Later reporting points in the same direction. A D65 early childhood task force found kindergarten readiness lower for Asian, Black, and Latino children than for white children, and found that D65’s Head Start, Early Head Start, and Preschool for All programs made up 21% of the child care capacity in Evanston and Skokie (Evanston Now). In September 2026, board member Maria Opdycke said the picture of racial achievement gaps has not changed since she began studying it in 2016 (Evanston Now, Sept. 29).

What this means for the budget: the gaps D65 is still trying to close in grades 3 to 8 are already visible on the first day of kindergarten. Early childhood is one of the few places the district can act on them before they compound.

Who would feel a cut most

Because JEH enrolls by need, a cut here lands on families with the fewest alternatives. That is a description of how the program is built, and it applies to families of every background who meet the criteria.

For some families this is personal in a way a budget line cannot show. One father told the board the services his son received at JEH were “not an abstract budget item” (Daily Northwestern, Sept. 30).

The fiscal case

It is clear that cuts are needed. D65 adopted an FY27 budget with a $5.1 million operating deficit that leaves 77.5 days of cash on hand, below the board’s 90-day goal (Evanston RoundTable, Sept. 29). The question for early childhood is how much a cut would save, net of everything that comes with it.

1. Gross cost is not net savings. Head Start is federally funded, and Preschool for All and early childhood special education come through state grants (JEH Early Childhood Center page). When D65 became a direct Head Start grantee, its five-year award was $13.25 million, or $2.65 million a year (Evanston Now); the current award should be confirmed. Cutting a grant-funded program saves D65 only its local share, and the grant dollars leave Evanston. A community member raised this same question in a September guest essay: what does Head Start cost local taxpayers after federal funding and reimbursements (Evanston RoundTable, Sept. 21)? That number should be public before any decision.

2. Some costs move instead of disappearing. D65 must serve preschoolers with disabilities either way (see above). A JEH special education teacher told the board that neighborhood schools lack facilities that state and federal funders require, such as bathrooms next to each classroom (Evanston RoundTable, Sept. 29). Relocation could require building work, added transport, and specialists who travel between sites. Those costs belong in any comparison. The district reached the same conclusion in 2025, warning that splitting the program across schools risks increasing special education costs (D65 SDRP III School Scenarios Overview Memo, Sept. 29, 2025).

3. Enrollment drives grant dollars. Head Start funding is tied to enrollment, and programs must stay at 97% of funded enrollment. In late 2025, D65’s partner site at the Infant Welfare Society was at about 87%, and the district’s annual grant payment was delayed (Evanston RoundTable, Dec. 2025). If busing is cut and fewer families can get their children to JEH, enrollment could fall and take grant funding with it.

4. Early learning can lower later costs. In North Carolina, early childhood funding cut the odds of 3rd-grade special education placement by 39%, and special education costs nearly twice as much per student as a regular classroom (Duke University). The Chicago Child-Parent Centers reduced remedial education, among other public costs (Reynolds et al., 2002). Those savings arrive years later, which is exactly why they are easy to overlook in a one-year budget.

5. The ground is shifting in Washington and Springfield. A federal proposal released in August 2026 would rewrite Head Start’s performance standards, including capping administrative costs at 5% instead of 15%, making parent committees optional, and requiring English-only instruction. Public comments close October 6, 2026 (First Five Years Fund FAQ). Illinois, by contrast, maintained Early Childhood Block Grant funding in its FY27 budget (Illinois Department of Early Childhood). Dismantling local structures now, while federal rules are in flux and state support is holding, risks losing capacity that would be expensive to rebuild.

Fair points, considered with additional context

Neighbors who question early childhood spending are asking reasonable things. These are the points we hear most, with what we think the evidence supports.

Preschool isn’t D65’s core job: For general preschool, that is accurate: Illinois does not require districts to run it. Preschool special education is required, though, and D65 has chosen to serve children with and without disabilities together, as federal law encourages. The core K-8 job also gets harder and costlier when children start kindergarten behind.

Preschool gains fade out: Test-score gains often do shrink by 3rd grade. The Boston and national Head Start studies found long-run gains in graduation, college, and adult earnings even so (Gray-Lobe et al.; Bailey et al.). The Tennessee results are a fair warning that a weak program can leave children worse off, which is why we ask for evaluation alongside protection.

D65 has funded early childhood for years and the gaps haven’t closed: This deserves a direct answer. Board member Maria Opdycke has urged the board to consider cutting programs that have not improved achievement (Daily Northwestern, Sept. 30). That standard is reasonable and should apply to every program, including JEH. D65’s own 2016 analysis said its data could not isolate JEH’s effect (2016 report, p. 10), though that information is over 10 years old. The right response is a current, careful comparison, since a program that enrolls the highest-need children will always look weaker on raw averages, and the details are critical to understanding where the challenges and opportunities are.

Preschool should move into the elementary schools to fill empty classrooms: The district has already studied this. In its September 2025 SDRP III scenarios memo, the administration declined to model spreading preschool classrooms across neighborhood schools, for three stated reasons: 1) the program runs on grants plus general funds, so expanding it would raise costs in the short term; 2) each site would need renovation, including safe outdoor play space, stronger ventilation for asthma and allergies, and child-sized sinks and toilets; and 3) breaking up the team of teachers, clinicians, and leaders risks raising special education costs and lowering quality (D65 SDRP III School Scenarios Overview Memo, Sept. 29, 2025). The district did model moving the 3 to 5 program into a single vacated school after a closure, located in the 5th, 8th, or 9th ward near where JEH families live, no earlier than 2027-28. It recommended keeping children at JEH, D65’s newest building (2002) and the only one rated better than “poor” on the facilities condition index. That analysis is a year old, so it is fair to ask whether it still holds under the $20 million package.

Families can use private preschool: Most JEH families qualify because of income or a child’s developmental needs, and the Family Center charges nothing for its services (JEH Family Center page). D65 programs were about a fifth of local child care capacity in the task force’s count (Evanston Now). Removing that capacity may not be absorbed easily by private providers, and the added burdens to the families should be evaluated first.

JEH has empty seats too: That is true, and we should say so. JEH enrolls about 276 children in a building with room for about 404, roughly 68% full (D65 SDRP III School Scenarios Overview Memo, Sept. 29, 2025; Thrive65 FAQ). The same efficiency standard Thrive65 applies to elementary buildings applies here. Underused space is a reason to ask how JEH could fill seats or share the building. The district’s own memo recommended stronger outreach to families about available early childhood programs.

Some other paths worth discussing: The same memo raised charging tuition to families who do not qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, as a way to address some of the program’s costs. The district said the idea needed more vetting than the SDRP timeline allowed. It deserves a fair hearing, with attention to how tuition would affect enrollment, grant eligibility, and the mix of children in classrooms.

Partnering with community agencies: D65 should also explore whether an established local provider could take over some or all of the grant-funded programs, such as Head Start, Early Head Start, and Preschool for All, so the funding and the community resource stay in Evanston while D65’s own share of the cost shrinks. Local partners already exist: D65 contracts with the Infant Welfare Society of Evanston for Early Head Start, and Childcare Network of Evanston holds its own Head Start grants (Evanston RoundTable, Dec. 2025). Evanston Cradle to Career (EC2C), a partnership of more than 40 local organizations that D65 helped found, could convene that conversation; it coordinates services rather than running classrooms, and its early childhood work is led by the Evanston Early Childhood Council (Evanston RoundTable, Aug. 2024). There is precedent at scale: New York City’s public schools stopped administering Head Start at the end of 2025, and federal officials selected new community grantees to run the programs (NYC Public Schools). Any transition would need careful planning. Grant transfers require federal and state approval, D65 would keep its legal duty to evaluate and serve preschoolers with disabilities, and families would need continuity of staff, location, and services through the handoff.

Questions to ask the board and administration

Useful in public comment, emails to board members, or the community sessions after October 13.

  1. What is the net local cost of each early childhood program (Head Start, Early Head Start, Preschool for All, Prevention Initiative, and early childhood special education) after federal, state, and child care assistance revenue? And how much would we estimate in outplacement costs for IDEA eligible 3-5 year old students if we eliminated our in-house programming?
  2. Which early childhood items are in the October 13 package, and how much outside grant money would D65 give up with each?
  3. If preschool moves to neighborhood schools, what would facility upgrades, transportation, and specialist coverage cost, and do the new sites meet Head Start and Preschool for All requirements? The administration’s 2025 scenarios memo said this would raise costs; does that conclusion still hold?
  4. If preschool busing is cut, what enrollment drop does the district expect, and how would that affect enrollment-based Head Start funding?
  5. How will D65 meet its federal Child Find duty to locate and evaluate children under 5, and where will children with IEPs be placed alongside peers without disabilities?
  6. Will the district publish current kindergarten readiness data by preschool experience, family income, disability, and English learner status? The most detailed breakdown we found is from 2016.
  7. How is the administration planning around the pending federal Head Start rule changes?

Talking points

Short enough for a two-minute public comment. Pick the two or four that fit you best and add your own experience; personal stories carry more weight than statistics.

Glossary

Term What it means
CCAP Child Care Assistance Program, Illinois’ child care subsidy for working families with low incomes
Child Find The federal requirement that districts locate and evaluate children who may have disabilities, starting before kindergarten
ECBG Early Childhood Block Grant, the state grant that funds Preschool for All and Prevention Initiative; run by the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood since July 1, 2026 (IDEC)
ECSE Early Childhood Special Education, preschool services for 3 to 5 year olds with disabilities
FAPE Free Appropriate Public Education, the legal right of children with disabilities to services at no cost to the family
FY28 Fiscal year 2028, D65’s budget year running July 2027 to June 2028
Head Start / Early Head Start Federal programs for children from families with low incomes; Head Start serves ages 3 to 5, Early Head Start birth to 3
IDEA Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal special education law
IEP Individualized Education Program, a child’s written special education plan
ISEL Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy, the assessment D65 has used to measure kindergarten literacy readiness
JEH Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center, D65’s early childhood site at 1500 McDaniel Ave.
NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, a draft federal rule open for public comment
PFA Preschool for All, Illinois’ state-funded preschool program

Sources

Retrieved October 5, 2026. Evanston RoundTable pages block automated access, so those were reviewed through search excerpts; verify quotes against the full articles before publishing.

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