Pre-kindergarten
Pre-kindergarten (also called Pre-K or PK) is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece (when kindergarten starts).[1][2] It may be delivered through a preschool or within a reception year in elementary school. Pre-kindergartens play an important role in early childhood education. They have existed in the US since 1922, normally run by private organizations. The U.S. Head Start program, the country's first federally funded pre-kindergarten program, was founded in 1967. This attempts to prepare children (especially disadvantaged children) to succeed in school.[3]
Pre-kindergartens differentiate themselves from other child care by equally focusing on building a child's social development, physical development, emotional development, and cognitive development. They commonly follow a set of organization-created teaching standards in shaping curriculum and instructional activities and goals. The term "preschool" more accurately approximates the name "pre-kindergarten", for both focus on harvesting the same four child development areas in subject-directed fashion. The term "preschool" often refers to such schools that are owned and operated as private or parochial schools. Pre-kindergartens refer to such school classrooms that function within a public school under the supervision of a public school administrator and funded completely by state or federally allocated funds, and private donations.
United States[edit]
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the percentage of U.S. three-, four-, and five-year-olds enrolled in pre-primary programs (including kindergarten and preschool programs) has stayed roughly stable from 2000 to 2017. U.S. participation rates in 2017 were 40% for three-year-olds, 68% for four-year-olds, and 86% for five-year-olds.[4]
As of 2016–17, a total of 44 states, plus the District of Columbia, provide at least some state funding for pre-K programs. Nine states (Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) plus D.C. include pre-K funding in their school funding formulas.[5] Conversely, as of 2016-17, six states (Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wyoming) provide no state funding for pre-K.[5]
In 2013, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, and the city of San Antonio, Texas, enacted or expanded pre-K programs. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio was elected on a pledge of Pre-K for all city children. A poll conducted in 2014 for an early education nonprofit advocate found that 60 percent of registered Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats supported expanding public preschool by raising the federal tobacco tax.[6]
Funding for Pre-K has proven a substantial obstacle for creating and expanding programs. The issue produced multiple approaches. Several governors and mayors targeted existing budgets. San Antonio increased sales taxes, while Virginia and Maine look to gambling. In Oregon, currently 20% of kids have access to publicly funded Pre-K of any kind, and a 2016 campaign is working to fully fund Pre-K to 12 education, for all kids whose parents want them to have the option of Pre-K.[6][7]
A 2012 review by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University identified Oklahoma, Georgia and West Virginia as among the leaders in public program quality and fraction of enrolled children. Florida had the highest enrollment in 2012 — almost four-fifths of all four-year-olds. About 84 percent were in private, religion-based or family centers. That state's preschool programs did not fare well on quality measures. Other states with more than 50 percent enrollment included Wisconsin, Iowa, Texas and Vermont.[6]
In 2002, Florida voters enacted a state constitutional amendment requiring that the state establish a free voluntary pre-kindergarten (VPK) program for all four-year-old children by fall 2005.[8] Florida's program is the largest state-level preschool program in the nation.[8] It is universal, meaning that all children are eligible so long as they meet the age and residency requirement.[8] In the 2013-14 school year, 80% of VPK programs were housed at private centers, 18% were housed at public schools, 1% were housed at family daycares, and 1% were housed at private schools.[8] The program resulted in an increase in pre-k participation, which was about 80% in 2014.[8] The program has suffered a decline in funding; in 2019, the Orlando Sentinel editorial board wrote that the Florida Legislature "has neglected the pre-K program almost since it was approved by voters."[9]
Impact[edit]
A 2018 study in the Journal of Public Economics found in Italy that pre-kindergarten "increased mothers' participation in the labor market and lowered the reservation wage of the unemployed, thus increasing their likelihood of finding a job" but "did not affect children's cognitive development, irrespective of their family background."[10] A randomized control found that children randomly assigned to undertake full-day pre-K had substantially greater outcomes in cognition, literacy, math, and physical development, at the end of pre-K, than their peers who were randomly assigned to undertake half-day pre-K.[11] A longitudinal randomized control study of 2,990 low-income children in Tennessee found that "children randomly assigned to attend pre-K had lower state achievement test scores in third through sixth grades than control children, with the strongest negative effects in sixth grade. A negative effect was also found for disciplinary infractions, attendance, and receipt of special education services, with null effects on retention."[12]
The Perry Preschool Project was a study on the impact of pre-kindergarten programs on outcomes for disadvantaged youth. The availability of high-quality pre-kindergarten education was found to have a statistically significant association with higher high school graduation rates, lower crime rates, lower teen pregnancy rates, and better economic outcomes in adulthood.[13][14]