BET Co-Founder Gives $5 Million to U-Va.

RICHMOND, Dec. 6 -- Virginia philanthropist and businesswoman Sheila C. Johnson announced Wednesday a $5 million gift to the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education to pay for programs that benefit young children.

Johnson, the president of the WNBA's Washington Mystics and the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, presented the gift at a news conference with Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who has vowed to implement universal preschool for all 4-year-olds in Virginia.

"We are losing our children at a rapid rate," Johnson said in explaining her gift. "They are falling through the cracks because we, as educators, the government, we're being lazy about the educational practice in this country."

University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III said Johnson's "extraordinarily generous gift" would help fund research on communications disorders, reading, counseling and clinical psychology services for young children.

"Ms. Johnson has been a champion of public education," Casteen told reporters.

During the 2005 gubernatorial campaign, Johnson was one of Kaine's biggest financial supporters, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars. On Wednesday, Kaine called her the "most generous person" he had ever met.

"Again and again, she has come back to education . . . as kind of a real touchstone," Kaine said.

Kaine used the announcement of Johnson's gift to promote his preschool idea, a key promise during his campaign for governor.

The governor has said it would cost about $300 million a year to make preschool available to all of the state's 4-year-olds. But he has said he will not push for a statewide effort next year, choosing to wait until 2008, when he will propose the state's next two-year budget.

Still, Kaine's adversaries are criticizing his preschool plan. They say the program would be costly and of dubious effectiveness, especially for children of more-affluent parents.

Johnson responded to that criticism Wednesday, saying that universal preschool "makes sense" because there are children in "dysfunctional households" across the state.

"The earlier that we could get kids in school, across the board, where they could be properly educated at an early age, we could really cut down on a lot of the learning problems later on," she said.

Kaine added that critics should look at the debate over kindergarten from years ago.

"No one questions about kindergarten. Why? Because people want youngsters to be able to learn," Kaine said. "Why wouldn't we recognize the new brain research that shows that these learning patterns really can be affected earlier?"