Advice for Policymakers on Getting Pre-K Right

In their great NYT op-ed today on what policymakers should do to maximize the impact of pre-k investments, Dan Willingham and David Grissmer make two equally key points: 1) Policymakers need to do a better job of ensuring that pre-k standards and quality definitions actually implement what research tells us makes a difference for preschool learning (hint: lots of programs don’t do this), 2) That said, we don’t know as much as we should about how to do pre-k well, and policymakers can--should-- design pre-k expansion in ways that enhance our knowledge so that further expansion can have even greater impact. Good pointers in thinking about how the administration should use the $250 in pre-k RTT funding included in the 2014 Omnibus legislation--the pre-k program Obama was talking about in his SOTU Tuesday night. But also key in thinking about how to improve the federal Head Start program and implement the $500 in funding for early head start expansion or EHS-childcare partnerships also included in the Omnibus. Read the whole thing here.