California is leading national preschool expansion, but quality lags, report says

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California’s preschool expansion has lead to surging enrollment and ranks high nationally in the amount of money spent on its youngest students, but needs to focus on improving the quality of its early education programs, researchers said.Across the country, the number of 4-year-olds attending state-funded preschools reached record highs last school year, driven by states embracing universal access and an unprecedented $14.4 billion in spending across 44 states and Washington, D.C., according to a report published Wednesday by the National Institute for Early Education Research.State-funded preschool enrollment in the U.S.

rose to 1.8 million children, reaching 37% of 4-year-olds and about 10% of 3-year-olds, the annual report said.More than half the nation’s public preschool enrollment gain — some 25,000 students — came from California, which this school year made every 4-year-old eligible for its transitional kindergarten program.In total, states added 44,000 students to their preschool enrollment.

But the report’s authors noted that the gains were smaller than the year prior and said preschool access remains wildly uneven from state to state.Some states — including Alaska and Arizona — even lost ground.“If providing high-quality preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds were a race,” the authors wrote, “some states are nearing the finish line, others have stumbled and fallen behind, and a few have yet to leave the starting line.”Engage with our community-funded journalism as we delve into child care, transitional kindergarten, health and other issues affecting children from birth through age 5.Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi and Rhode Island are the only six states to meet all of the benchmarks evaluated by the report.The rapid rollout of California’s transitional kindergarten program has had its tradeoffs.

The national institute o...