Early Education: Popular, Prominent, and Paused

There's plenty of political enthusiasm for public investments in early education these days. President Obama has mentioned pre-K in each of his last two State of the Union Addresses, a bill to dramatically expand American pre-K access was introduced in Congress last November, and state leaders from both parties are working to build new and better early education systems to fit their states' needs.

But as anyone who read our new paper, Subprime Learning: Early Education in America Since the Great Recession, already knows, early education's increased popularity and prominence haven't been matched by substantive progress in providing more seats for students. (Note: click here to watch an event we held yesterday to discuss the paper.)

In other words, greater awareness is encouraging, but there's much more work to be done. My colleague, Laura Bornfreund, and I explore this dynamic in an article published today at The Atlantic:

Awareness of early education issues is as high as it’s ever been...But have we actually expanded preschool to more kids? Not really. Have we made progress at closing achievement gaps between young students from different socioeconomic backgrounds? No. Have we sustained funding commitments after the one-time stimulus boost in 2009? Far from it.