Alabama provides one of the best quality pre-kindergarten programs in the United States, but struggles to offer that program to enough children, according to a nationwide report released today.

"The State of Preschool 2011," an annual study conducted by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), found that Alabama's program, First Class, meets or exceeds all 10 of its benchmarks for quality pre-kindergarten.

Alabama is one of just five states to meet all 10 benchmarks, which include early learning standards, teacher education and staff-child ratio. The other four states are Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina and Rhode Island.

It is Alabama's sixth year in a row to meet all 10 benchmarks, said Jan Hume, director of the state's Office of School Readiness, which overseas the state-funded pre-kindergarten program.

"The leadership of the program over the past several years has really focused on quality," Hume said. "Under Gov. Bob Riley, when Dr. Marquita Davis ran the program, and under Gov. (Robert) Bentley, that focus on quality continues."

But just 6 percent, or 3,870, of Alabama 4-year-olds were enrolled in state-provided pre-kindergarten during the 2010-2011 school year, the study found.

That figure landed Alabama at 33rd in the nation, according to the report. Aside from the 11 states that do not provide such classes, just six others had a lower percentage of enrolled children.

The state with the best access, Florida, saw 76 percent of its 4-year-olds enrolled in early education, the report shows.

Hume said the biggest challenge to increasing the availability of pre-kindergarten has been funding.

"In the state-funded program, we really only have the dollars to touch 6 percent," Hume said. "We're trying to find ways to reach more children with that same amount of funding."

Alabama's pre-kindergarten receives about $17.8 million per year from the state.

There are just 215 state-funded sites in Alabama. Hume said 115 of those are in public schools, 39 are in Head Start sites, 50 are in childcare centers or private schools and the rest are in faith-based sites or other locations.

Steve Barnett, NIEER's director, said in a conference call with reporters last week that pre-kindergarten money, after adjustments for inflation, has plummeted nationally by more than $700 per child over the last decade.

Total funding nationally has slipped by $60 million, Barnett said.

"You put all of this together, and we find them to be very troubling signs," Barnett said. "It's time for us to step up as a nation. This is not a partisan, a liberal or conservative issue. It's a children's issue."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who sat in on the conference call, agreed.

"As a country, we must do better," Duncan said last Tuesday. "That's simply unacceptable and signals that the quality of many preschool programs is suffering."

Alabama ranks 16th in the nation for its spending of $4,544 per pre-kindergarten student, the report shows. The state in the 2010-2011 school year lost funding of $91 per student over the year before, the study found.

Despite national cuts in funding, Barnett said last week, enrollment of 4-year-olds has doubled over the past decade nationally. Currently, 28 percent of 4-year-olds across the country attend a public pre-kindergarten program. Alabama's pre-kindergarten enrollment has stayed at 6 percent for the last three years.

Duncan said the nation is playing "catch up," with too many children going into kindergarten unprepared.

"The goal of the country needs to be getting that number down to zero as fast as we can," Duncan said.