State of Preschool
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Federal Funding Uncertainty Puts Pressure on States to Close Preschool Access & Quality Gaps
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The 22nd State of Preschool finds that state initiatives propelled early childhood education (ECE) in the United States to historic highs. Nationally, preschool has recovered from the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, progress has been highly uneven from state to state. While many states advanced by enrolling more children in quality preschool others lagged, funding no preschool or only low quality programs. As federal cutbacks in education and elsewhere are being implemented, it is notable that federal recovery funding played a crucial role in sustaining and advancing preschool while other federal funds underpin state programs and decrease inequality among the states in access to quality preschool education.
Acknowledgments
The opinions expressed in this report are solely those of the authors. We wish to thank the Heising-Simons Foundation for supporting data collection and the development, production, and dissemination of this publication. Established in 2007 by husband and wife Mark Heising and Elizabeth (Liz) Simons, The Heising-Simons Foundation is dedicated to advancing sustainable solutions in the environment, supporting groundbreaking research in science, and enhancing the education of the nation’s youngest learners. In addition, we wish to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of the State of Preschool report. Finally, the authors would like to extend our thanks to Sandy Ogilvie for her assistance on this report.
This publication is a product of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), a unit of the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. NIEER supports early childhood education policy by providing objective, nonpartisan information based on research.
Suggested Citation
Friedman-Krauss, A. H., Barnett, W. S., Hodges, K. S., Garver, K. A., Weisenfeld, G., Duer J. (2024). The State of Preschool 2023: State Preschool Yearbook. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research.
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