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North Carolina has slipped from its position as a national pre-kindergarten leader and appears headed for further decline, says the leader of a national research institute.

The state’s pre-kindergarten program for at-risk 4-year-olds once was one of only six state programs nationwide that met all the institute’s standards for quality. But enrollment and state spending on N.C. Pre-K have dropped, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Institute for Early Education Research. Read more here.

In other headlines:

--Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign Monday began morphing into less of a pursuit of the presidency and more into an effort to shape the Republican platform and to influence the discussion in the fall elections. More here.

--In today's Dome, U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers gets the big treament from Politco and The Washington Post continues to rank North Carolina as the state most likely to see a partisan change in the governor's mansion. Apparenlty the D.C. punditry doesn't have any faith in the Democratic candidates.

North Carolina's pre-K programs got good grades. 

With its More at Four program, it was one of only two states — Alabama was the other — to meet all 10 quality standards for pre-kindergarten programs as set by the National Institute for Early Education Research, Lynn Bonner reports.

The institute, based at Rutgers University in New Jersey, looked at standards for teacher education, student-to-teacher ratios, and class sizes.

The report, which was written before the Senate budget was released Monday, included this observation:

We are concerned that unless funding per child increases in North Carolina, programs will be forced to undercut quality in some other ways (with unreasonably low teacher pay for their qualifications, for example).

The Senate has proposed cutting $40 million from the program and cut the amount it pays per student.

The state began offering More at Four in 2001. The pre-school program is open to children from low-income families or those who have other risk factors, such as educational or developmental delays.