Dive Brief:
- Some 100 parents, educators, lawmakers, and community activists attended a conference in Los Angeles dedicated to exploring a lack of access to early childcare education, and the resulting impact on intergenerational poverty.
- Last year, the Advancement Project — the organization behind the Early Learning Needs In L.A. County conference — released a report that said 2.4% of infants and toddlers and 41.3% of preschool-aged children are able to secure a spot in licensed early childhood education centers in the county, with children of color most disproportionately affected.
- One of the primary barriers to access is cost: a typical annual tuition bill is around $1200.
Dive Insight:
Early childhood education was a hallmark of former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's tenure, and Duncan recently told Education Dive that including pre-K in the new Every Student Succeeds Act was one of his proudest accomplishments. "Education doesn't start at five," Duncan said. "It starts at birth."
California has found that to be true. A recent study from the American Institutes for Research finds California's state-mandated “transitional kindergarten” (TK) program has been largely successful. Created by the state's Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, the program makes all children whose fifth birthdays fall between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2 eligible for a state-funded year of pre-K education.
Across the U.S., the issue of pre-k education has been a hot topic, with 924 early childhood bills introduced in state legislatures in 2015 alone. Though a general consensus around the efficacy of pre-K exists, lawmakers have struggled to come to grips with best practices for implementation. Most legislative efforts have represented only small moves in expanding access and diversity in public preschool and early childhood education programs.