St Michael's Catholic Secondary School in Truro is planning to relocate to Camborne and open as a directly state-funded school in September 2012.

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Government officials say this will mean free schools - and any other state-funded school - can open "in almost any building for a year without needing planning permission".

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But parents at Waverley said it would have in effect turned the private school into a state-funded school with fees having to be scrapped and an increase in class sizes.

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The money will cover a visit for a minimum of two pupils and a teacher from each state-funded secondary school, the government says.

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In 2011, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), 39 states had state-funded pre-school initiatives (not including Head Start, the federal programme for poor children).

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She oversaw its conversion in 2008 from a fee-charging school to a state-funded academy - one of the first private schools in England to make the switch.

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While 39 states and the District of Columbia offer state funded pre-school, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that the United States ranks 28th out of 38 countries for the share of four-year olds enrolled in early childhood education.

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So far, the court has ducked the key issue: whether school-voucher plans which allow parents to use state-funded vouchers to send their children to private religious schools breach the separation of church and state enshrined in the first amendment.

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Glendening, a former teacher and the first in his family to attend college, noted that with "tax cuts in place and funded" the state could make a big difference by making a large one-time investment in education, specifically school construction.

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