Eligible parents and child care providers who successfully prepare children for kindergarten would get a $2,000 reward under legislation that passed the Kentucky Senate on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 191 proposes a three-year pilot program, which would be administered by the University of Kentucky College of Education, to give child care financial assistance to child care centers, child care homes and low-income families (who are eligible for child care assistance) whose children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn.
The pilot program would run Jan. 1, 2027, to July 31, 2029. Whoever cared for and prepared the child to learn for the two years prior to kindergarten enrollment would benefit from the payment. Parents can benefit “regardless of the utilization of a babysitter,” the bill says.
Such a financial reward “is a way to encourage parents to prepare their children for kindergarten,” the bill says. According to a fiscal note attached to the bill, full implementation would cost about $400,000 a year.
The investment represents “the incentive to get that child ready for kindergarten,” said Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, the primary sponsor, during the Feb. 17 Senate Families and Children Committee. “And that’s worth something. That’s an investment in that child. I don’t care where that child is being taught. That’s an investment that will pay off for all of us in the long run.”
According to 2025 data from Annie E. Casey Foundation, fewer than half of Kentucky children are kindergarten ready. The Kentucky Department of Education says that a child is ready for school if they show up able to use five to six word sentences, are learning to count and can sit still in class, among other measures.
The only senator to vote against SB 191 was Donald Douglas, R-Nicholasville. The bill may now go to the House for consideration.
What’s in the bill?
The pilot program Carroll is proposing would:
- Make sure participants are from “geographically diverse areas” in Kentucky.
- Determine how to provide performance-based incentives to diverse types of early childhood education providers “in order to increase the number of children in the Commonwealth who are assessed as kindergarten ready.”
- Evaluate the effectiveness of performance-based incentives in increasing the number of children entering school prepared to learn.
- Establish a standard for how to award one-time payments of $2,000 to recipients “once a child is designated by the assessment processes as kindergarten ready” based on an assessment once they reach kindergarten.
- And more. Read the bill here.
Speaking on the bill in committee, Carroll said Kentucky needs “to maximize every type of service that we have” to get kids ready to learn.