By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis – Missouri Senator Kit Bond says he'll introduce legislation to expand a Missouri-based early childhood education program to more communities across the country.
Bond's legislation would expand the Parents As Teachers program, a national pre-kindergarten initiative that started in St. Louis 20 years ago.
The package includes funding for communities where English is not the primary language, and would also expand the program on military bases.
Bond's proposal would spend $500 million over three years.
"We'll provide the money on a grant basis," Bond said. "Obviously Missouri is way ahead of everybody else; we're not going to take all of the money, but we will qualify based on the need and the efforts in those states."
Each state would have to submit a plan for implementing the program in order to qualify for the grant.