Overview
- The NIEER report, released Wednesday, found state-funded preschool reached about 1.8 million children after adding 44,000 seats, covering roughly 37% of 4-year-olds and about 10% of 3-year-olds.
- Most of the new seats came from a handful of states, led by California’s rollout of universal transitional kindergarten, which added about 25,000 students while meeting only two of NIEER’s 10 quality benchmarks.
- Six states met all 10 quality standards, with Georgia becoming the first universal program to do so after capping classes at 20 students and setting a 1-to-10 child-to-staff ratio.
- Public preschool spending totaled $17.7 billion with more than $14 billion from states, yet 17 states cut funding year over year after inflation and growth slowed compared with the prior year.
- State results diverged in practice, as Mississippi raised enrollment and hit every benchmark, Iowa ranked sixth for 4-year-old access at 65% with low per-child funding, and Illinois reported fewer 4-year-olds in pre-K despite progress on quality.