The Pew Charitable Trusts completed its 10-year campaign to advance high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three- and four-year-olds in 2011. Through its successes, Pre-K Now changed the national conversation about pre-k education, and in its final report, challenged the nation’s policy makers to transform public education by moving away from the current K-12 system to pre-K-12.
Visit the Pew Home Visiting and Children's Dental Campaigns and the Families and Health issue sections of this website to learn more about critical programs for young children.
Why Pre-K Matters
We know from more than 50 years of research that vital learning happens before age five. Yet, for decades, policy makers and education leaders have been working to “fix” public education while overlooking the demonstrated benefits of pre-kindergarten education. To ensure that all children fulfill their potential as individuals and citizens, we must re-imagine public education as a system that begins not with kindergarten, but with quality pre-k, and builds on that foundation to raise performance in later grades.
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The LATEST from the Project
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- Pre-K Now
A Matter of Degrees
This 2010 report, authored by Marisa Bueno, Linda Darling-Hammond and Danielle Gonzales, reviewed research on training for pre-k teachers and concluded that educators with at least a bachelor’s degree coupled with specialized training in early childhood are best able to foster development of the cognitive, social and emotional skills children need to be ready for kindergarten.
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Tapping Title I
A companion to Pew's earlier white paper, New Beginnings: Using Federal Title I Funds to Support Local Pre-K Efforts, this 2010 brief provided basic information that superintendents, school board members and other district officials need to make informed choices about using Title I resources to support quality pre-k programs.
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New Beginnings
This 2009 policy paper outlined the increased federal investments in Title I and highlighted districts that have used this funding stream successfully to establish and strengthen their early education programs.
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Beyond the School Yard
When state and federal funding for pre-k falls short, school administrators can collaborate with community-based programs to expand higher-quality early learning opportunities. This 2009 report highlighted the benefits and challenges of these collaborations.
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The Pre-K Pinch
This report reveals that eligibility requirements and prohibitively high costs lead such families to sacrifice basic household needs to pay for early education and care for their children, or to settle for low-quality options with unproven benefits.
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Meeting the Challenge of Rural Pre-K
This brief laid out the need for greater accessibility to high-quality pre-k in rural communities and proposes a range of policy options that the federal government can consider to address challenges like transportation and facilities and promote collaborations with Head Start.
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Meaningful Investments in Pre-K
This 2008 brief, written jointly with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, examined the costs associated with quality in pre-kindergarten programs.
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Funding the Future
This 2008 report highlighted strategies and sources that states and some cities are tapping in order to expand and supplement current pre-k funding during tough fiscal times.
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Common Vision, Different Paths
This 2007 report, written jointly with ZERO TO THREE, provided real-life examples of challenges encountered by five states currently working to build high-quality, comprehensive early childhood systems and the strategies they used to overcome them. more
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Pre-K for Military Families
This 2007 report recommended that state policymakers should help the children of our nation's military personnel meet the unique challenges of the military lifestyle by providing them with high-quality pre-k.
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