Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-23-2016
Abstract
Large numbers of children of low income families in the United States arrive at kindergarten already far behind their more affluent peers on measures of school readiness. In the absence of any federal preschool policy and amidst alarm about this growing divide, universal prekindergarten (UPK) programs have been launched around the United States, at both the state and local levels, to address the school readiness gap. Invest in Children, a public/private partnership in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, OH) launched a UPK program of high quality, affordable preschool nine years ago. The program’s creation, implementation and challenges are discussed along with evaluation findings that document its positive impact on school readiness. Lessons learned are discussed in terms of the impact of political and economic shifts, as well as state policy changes, on this local program. The program’s planned expansion and enhancements to program design and evaluation are also described.
Keywords
early childhood, prekindergarten, school readiness, preschool
Publication Title
Early Years
Volume
37
Issue
1
First Page
91
Last Page
107
Rights
© 2016 TaCTyC
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Rebekah L. Dorman, Elizabeth Anthony, Billie Osborne-Fears & Robert L. Fischer (2017) Investing in high quality preschool: lessons from an urban setting, Early Years, 37:1, 91-107, DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2016.1228614
Comments
This is a peer reviewed Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Early Years, available at: 10.1080/09575146.2016.1228614