Fighting back. (Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies).

Parents fought back when the fate of New York's universal pre-kindergarten program looked uncertain following Gov. George Pataki's proposed cuts to the 2003-2004 budget. And they won.

In May, Pataki vetoed the legislature's $94.4 billion budget proposal, which included $204 million for the universal pre-kindergarten program. The next day, the state Legislature overrode the governor's veto. The state budget restored more than $1 billion in school aid over the proposed Executive Budget.

The money "should provide school districts with the opportunity to not only reduce anticipated school tax increases, but to maintain threatened educational programs," said state Senator Stephen Saland, Senate Education Committee chairman.

Due in part to Karen Schimke, president of the advocacy coalition Schyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, more than 200,000 people signed petitions calling for Pataki to restore all of the $368 million in education cuts to the budget.

Over 60,000 children, a quarter of the 4-year-olds eligible in the state, participate in the pre-kindergarten program. "Pre-K and early education have the most evidence-based research of any educational strategy in making an impact for kids ... It is just common sense," Schimke says. "Parents have known that 85 percent of what a child learns happens before the age of five."

With a $12 billion shortfall predicted for the 2003-2004, the largest in state history, sacrifices had to be made, said Ken Brown, a spokesman for the state budget division. "We need to make tough choices and these choices may include programs the governor himself has championed," Brown says.

Under Pataki, New York increased school aid by more than 50 percent since 1995 and leads the nation in per-pupil spending at nearly $11,500 per pupil, the state budget office says.