The Arizona Auditor General’s Office found a well-run agency that coordinates with other government entities and that’s planning for a future in which tobacco tax revenues, the main source of income that funds the more than $100 million in grants for child development programs issued annually by First Things First, are on the decline.

Arizona won praise in a recent report for its program linking preschool teachers with training and scholarships, even as the report said low wages for those teachers could make such systems an exercise in futility.

The board overseeing Arizona's early childhood development program has chosen the woman who championed the 2006 voter initiative creating the agency as board chair.

Rep. Sonny Borrelli is hoping to circumvent an obstructive committee chairman with a new plan to sweep funding for an early childhood development program.

I was disappointed to see Mr. (Sonny) Borrelli misrepresenting information about First Things First as a means of getting support for his latest bill to sweep the early childhood education funds, allegedly to help K-12 schools remediate kids not reading well in first and second grade.

In 2006, Arizona voters passed a cigarette tax based on the promise of funding early childhood development programs through a newly created organization named “First Things First.” Taxpayers have become the victim of this promise, which was a great idea that has been misshapen and lost its way and original mission.

Rebuffed in his efforts to sweep dollars from First Things First as a part of K-12 funding plans, Senate President Andy Biggs will still get an audit of the early childhood development program that conservative lawmakers have long argued is ...

Just one day after the First Things First board formally opposed legislative leadership’s plan to sweep some of its funding for K-12 education, Senate President Andy Biggs called for an audit of the early childhood development and health program.

Board members of a voter-approved organization that funds programs to promote early childhood development are fighting a plan by legislative leaders to raid its dollars to instead increase aid for K-12 education.

An early childhood development program is back in the Legislature’s crosshairs, five years after lawmakers and former Gov. Jan Brewer tried and failed to convince voters to abolish the program and use its funding to balance the state’s precarious budget.