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[Why Should Schools Be Involved?]
School Involvement in Early Childhood, July 2000
This publication refers to all programs that provide regularly scheduled child care and education to children prior to kindergarten as "preschool care and education programs." It highlights the role of public schools and refers to preschool care and education programs that are based in, or linked closely with, public schools as "prekindergarten." There are many similarities among preschool care and education programs, but they also have some distinguishing characteristics.
The primary purpose of child care programs is to care for children, typically 9 to 10 hours a day, 5 days a week while their parents are working. Some child care centers operate as for-profit businesses, while others operate as nonprofit programs in churches, schools, and other community facilities. Home-based child care includes informal arrangements with relatives, friends, and neighbors. It also includes family child care businesses operated in homes, where one or more adults care for children.
The primary purpose of traditional preschool programs has been to provide early education, typically 2 to 3 hours a day, 3 to 5 days a week. However, increased numbers of working parents have led to programs that combine full-day, full-year child care and preschool. Most child care and preschool programs, both for-profit and nonprofit, are private and depend on fees that parents can afford to pay.
Head Start is a federal program that offers free education and comprehensive support services for preschool children and their families with incomes below the federal poverty level. Most Head Start programs are part day, 3 to 5 days a week, and operate on a school year calendar, but these programs are also changing as more parents join the workforce. In 1999, 49 percent of Head Start families needed child care, and 27 percent of these families received child care through Head Start or its sponsoring agency.7 Head Start is not funded to serve all eligible children.
Most prekindergarten programs are targeted to three- and four-year-old children whose families do not speak English at home, have low incomes, or have other special needs that place children at serious disadvantage when entering school. Even with restricted eligibility, the initiatives are not large enough to serve all eligible children.8 However, some states have started voluntary programs for all four-year-olds. In 1993, Georgia became the first state to offer universal prekindergarten for four-year-olds, and in 1997, New York began phasing in their prekindergarten program, with the goal of offering universal prekindergarten for four-year-olds by 2003. In 1998, Oklahoma began paying for all four-year-olds who are enrolled in public school prekindergarten.
In addition to prekindergarten, many states are funding parenting education and other family services that are based in or linked with schools. Missouri offers its Parents as Teachers program--designed to improve school readiness through home visits to expectant parents and to families with children from birth to age five--in every school district in the state. Forty-eight other states, as well as 8 other countries, also offer the Parents as Teachers program. Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Ohio are some of the states that fund school-based family resource centers for families with preschool children.
Increased school involvement in early childhood has raised questions about the role of public schools with preschool children and the effects of public prekindergarten on children and on Head Start and private preschool care and education programs. The National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education in the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) convened a group of national, state, and community early childhood and education leaders in December 1997 to discuss these questions. While the meeting was not structured to seek a consensus among all participants, certain key issues drew frequent or widespread expressions of agreement as the group considered the following questions:
This publication is based on discussion at the meeting and on recent related data and research. The purpose of the publication is to provide schools, families, and communities with information and ideas about public school prekindergarten and other preschool care and education initiatives that are linked with public schools. The publication offers insights from meeting participants about public school involvement in early childhood, and it provides examples of how states and communities are designing programs to expand and improve preschool care and education.
Meeting participants identified the need for a publication to assist policymakers as they make decisions about how to help all children come to school prepared to learn, and they recommended keeping the publication updated with current information and examples. To help meet that recommendation, OERI asks that you keep us informed about how schools are involved with preschool care and education in your state and community.