America actually listened to the parental childcare crisis with record number of 4-year-olds in state preschool

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.

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State-funded preschool enrollment in the U.S. rose to 1.8 million kids, reaching 37% of 4-year-olds and about 10% of 3-year-olds, according to an annual report published Wednesday by the National Institute of Early Education Research. 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 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.”

Free preschool has expanded in California

More than half the nation’s public preschool enrollment gain — some 25,000 students — came in California, which this year made every 4-year-old eligible for its “ transitional kindergarten ” program, or “TK.” The rapid rollout has had its tradeoffs. The national institute outlines 10 quality benchmarks for preschools, related to teacher training, class size and curriculum. California met just two of them last school year. And private preschool owners say the rush of 4-year-olds joining public schools threatens to cripple their businesses.

“Universal TK … is a real win, but it’s also just the start of the work and not the end of it,” said Jessica Sawko of Children Now, which advocates on early childhood issues in California. She noted that the state will hit two more quality benchmarks in next year’s report, by lowering its student-teacher ratio to 10-to-1 and by requiring lead teachers to have early education training.

The report illustrates some of the difficult tradeoffs states face when they scale up programs quickly or have limited funding. Hawaii is one of six states that meet all the institute’s benchmarks. Its state preschool program also only serves 10% of 4-year-olds.

Evidence is mounting that the impact of high-quality preschool can follow children into adulthood, making them better prepared for kindergarten, more likely to graduate high school and more likely to find work. And it is increasingly seen as essential for success in kindergarten and beyond. Educators now also expect youngsters to start their first year of school already equipped to navigate kindergarten.

“We have a lot of kids who still do not fulfill their potential,” said Steven Barnett, founder and director of the early education institute. “We have evidence — very strong evidence — that preschool programs substantially improved the foundation for later success.”

Some states also recognize that free prekindergarten can make a difference for the wider economy, allowing parents to return to work at a time when private child care is becoming less affordable.

Preschool means confident kindergartners

Heather Sufuentes witnessed the impact of preschool when she was principal of Parkview Elementary in Chico, California, as it began its transitional kindergarten program. She said students who attended the program, which has a play-based curriculum and runs the length of a workday, arrived with more confidence and often volunteered to be class leaders.

“They’re well prepared to transition into that big elementary school setting,” said Sufuentes, now director of elementary education for Chico Unified School District. Chico has more than doubled the number of TK seats it offers since 2022.

Marisol Márquez, a secretary who works for the state, sends her daughter to transitional kindergarten at 1st Street Elementary in Los Angeles. She had been sending her for free to a learning center underwritten by COVID-19 relief funding. But she would have had to start paying tuition this year, and she’s not sure how she and her husband, a UPS driver, would have made it work. She was elated to hear 1st Street Elementary was offering free transitional kindergarten.

Educators there quickly discovered her daughter was bright and began sending her to kindergarten for math and reading lessons.

“If it hadn’t been for this program, we would have never found that out,” Márquez said.

In some states, preschool is expensive. In others, it’s free

Despite the raised expectations for 5-year-olds, no state mandates that children attend preschool, and only some cities and states make it accessible to every 4-year-old. Preschool offerings differ vastly. A family living in Wyoming, which has no state-funded preschool, could move to Colorado, where every parent can send their 4-year-old to part-time preschool without paying a dime in tuition. In the District of Columbia, even affluent families have access to two full years of prekindergarten, while neighboring Virginia has a far less robust program.

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