ABSTRACT
The 2011 State Preschool Yearbook is the newest edition of our annual report profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. This latest Yearbook presents data on state-funded prekindergarten during the 2010-2011 school year as well as documenting a decade of progress since the first Yearbook collected data on the 2001-2002 school year. Tracking these trends is essential to ensuring states prioritize early childhood education, which influences how successfully America's future generations will compete in a global knowledge economy.
EXCERPTS
Over the past decade, state-funded pre-K has been education’s biggest success story. Enrollment has grown dramatically and, in a number of states, so has quality. More children than ever are served by state programs aimed at preparing them to succeed in school and life. But after years of steady progress, our data show that many states’ commitments to their youngest citizens are now slipping. Budget cuts in many states now limit enrollment at a time when family incomes have fallen. This is undermining the quality of state pre-K.
Even as the nation begins to emerge from the economic downturn, few states are adding significantly to enrollment and the educational quality of state pre-K is taking a backseat to budget cutting—even though the number of students who need good preschool programs has risen.