Myles! / Flickr
Eighteen states will be tapping into more than $250 million of federal preschool grants--but despite trying, the Buckeye State won’t be one of them.Ohio and 34 other states each created an application to get a chunk of the U.S. Department of Education’s Preschool Development Grants program.The state applied to receive $20 million to create more than 2,500 new preschool seats in economically-disadvantaged areas in both urban cities--including Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Springfield, Toledo and Canton--as well as five rural areas.With an overall score of 211 out of a total possible 230 points, Ohio came relatively close to its peers. Roughly two points ahead were both Massachusetts and New Jersey, who each received funding.Applications were judged on a laundry-list of criteria, including providing examples of how programming would be implemented in high-need communities and showing that community leaders were already invested.The state’s grant was written over a period of several months by a group of statewide organizations, including Joni Close, chairwoman of the Ohio’s Early Childhood Advisory Council.While in Washington, D.C. earlier this month to attend a White House summit on early childhood education, she admitted to being very disappointed in the news.“It was just a decision on the administration on how they were going to divvy that [money] up,” she said. “Ohio was right there. I think that says we put in a great application. It was a very strong one.”Steven Barnett, director for the National Institute for Early Education Research, said the scoring doesn’t discredit Ohio’s ideas, but it could expose a few weaknesses.“Two points on another day might have been scored differently,” he said. “Some of the differences in scoring is not because the plan was better or worse, but perhaps states like New Jersey provided somewhat more detail about their plans and left fewer unanswered questions.”In comments made by those who reviewed Ohio’s application, several point to a lack of details or unfocused plans in certain areas. Scorers have a tricky job, Barnett said.“The difficulty for the people scoring these is there isn’t enough money to fund preschool expansion in all of the states,” he said. “They have to make fine-grain comparisons, and probably are not funding some proposals that would be terrific.”In a letter thanking grant application partners, state superintendent Dick Ross said despite not winning any money, he’s “encouraged” in both the partnerships and progress developed during the process.