Federal Preschool Development Grants are back, but they offer substantive differences from the legacy program created during the Obama administration.
The grant application, released this month, gives states the opportunity to apply for a share of $250 million to bolster their preschool programs. While the original program set aside some funds for states that were basically starting from scratch, this new program wants to see “collaboration and coordination” among existing programs.
Also, the Obama-era program defined the high-quality preschool slots that it wanted to provide. For example, among the rules, teachers would be required to have a bachelor’s degree, class sizes could be no more than 20, with one teacher for 10 pupils, and the preschool slots had to be a full school day.
This new iteration of the grant program—created as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act—backs off on all those requirements.
