Like many states, Nebraska has greatly expanded early childhood education in recent years. The idea is to make sure kids are ready for kindergarten. But there are different perspectives on the benefits – and costs -- of the expansion.

It’s Monday morning in Tia Miller’s brightly-decorated classroom at Calvert elementary school in Auburn, Nebraska, a small town 70 miles southeast of Lincoln. A group of four-year-olds files in from recess, and Miller tells them the schedule. “We just got in from recess. Next we are going to small group. After small group do you remember what time it is?” Miller asks. “Choice time,” the children say, and Miller repeats the phrase.

Jared Ehlers and Lily Philips play with robots they made in Bev Fall's Lincoln day care. (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

Several minutes later, the kids are reaching into a grab bag and pulling out letters. “What did you get?” Miller asks one of them.

“A ‘C,’" one little girl replies.

“I have ‘C’ in my name,” says a girl named Chloe.

This program in Auburn is one of 20 starting up across Nebraska this year, after the Legislature approved spending another $3.5 million targeted at kids the Nebraska Department of Education considers “at risk.” That includes children born with low birth-weight or who have disabilities, such as speech problems. It also includes those from low-income families or born to teenage mothers.

Miller said the program is doing important work. “It’s huge because the kids that are in my class are those at-risk kids that need that extra push to get ‘em up to speed…so they’re able to operate at the same level as their other classmates,” she explained.

Those other classmates are the ones that will be joining them next year, in kindergarten. But while this year’s grants are targeted to “at-risk” kids, the Legislature aims to make early childhood education available for every four-year old in Nebraska.

New early childhood education grants, approved in 2014: Auburn Public Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 13 Banner County Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 15 Bayard Public Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 2 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 40 Bertrand Community Schools Grant Award: $71,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Blair Community Schools Grant Award: $145,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Clarkson Public Schools Grant Award: $50,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 15 Fremont Public Schools Grant Award: $296,674 Number of Classrooms: 6 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 108 Johnson-Brock Public Schools Grant Award: $69,800 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Lincoln Public Schools Grant Award: $425,000 Number of Classrooms: 8 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 144 Madison Public Schools Grant Award: $90,176 Number of Classrooms: 2 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 34 Millard Public Schools Grant Award: $109,192 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 16 North Platte Public Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 2 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 32 Ord Public Schools Grant Award: $75,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Osceola Public Schools Grant Award: $75,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 18 Overton Public Schools Grant Award: $96,820 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Ralston Public Schools Grant Award: $143,775 Number of Classrooms: 2 part-day & 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 54 Randolph Public Schools Grant Award: $65,370 Number of Classrooms: 1 part-day Proposed Number of Children: 12 Scottsbluff Public Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Sidney Public Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Sterling Public Schools Grant Award: $60,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 10 Walthill Public Schools Grant Award: $125,000 Number of Classrooms: 1 full-day Proposed Number of Children: 20 Source: Nebraska Department of Education

Having programs like that in the schools could produce a huge change in the care many Nebraska children get. Inside her Lincoln home on a weekday morning, day care provider Bev Fall is surrounded by half a dozen kids gathered around a table, playing with magnets and tin cans. “I am a robot, beep beep. I am a robot with one foot,” declares one little girl. “Ahh! My eye came loose,” exclaims a little boy.

Fall lets the kids decide what they want to play. But she said they’re learning at the same time. “They’re learning about science. What magnets attach to -- they don’t stick to the table but they’ll stick to the tin cans. And you can hear them talking about what they are creating,” Fall said.

Fall said it’s good that publicly-funded, school-based early childhood education programs are available to kids who might otherwise be parked in front of a tv. But she does have some reservations about the approach. “I think we can do so much better for our kids -- not try to pound information into their heads. We can help them learn in so many different ways. They learn on their own ability through exploration and imagination. I think a lot of that is missing in the public school system,” Fall said.

Back in Auburn Amy Kroll, who administers the early childhood education program, said she’s not worried that schools will overemphasize academics for four-year-olds. “I don’t think that’s true because the kids have to have so many hours of choice time a day -- you know, free play.”

We know the kids that are ready to do that and the kids that are not,” Kroll added. “We’re not going to overwhelm them, because it’s still preschool.”

Some of what’s being taught looks beyond academics -- and beyond preschool -- to when today’s children become adults. Jen Goettemoeller, senior policy associate at First Five Nebraska, an organization that promotes early childhood education, said businesses need employees who have more than just cognitive skills. “They also want people, workers who are going to show up on time every day and be that dependable worker. A lot of those things are found in the non-cognitive skills that are built in that early childhood period,” Goettemuller said.

The effort to expand early childhood education could have a big effect on taxpayers as well. At her Lincoln day care, Fall charges about $7,200 per year for full-time care. The full-time program in Auburn public schools costs the state $12,500 per child.

The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University estimates just over one quarter of Nebraska four-year-olds are in an early childhood education program. Expanding that to cover all four-year-olds in the state could cost well over an additional $100 million a year.