While more early-childhood education advocates call for universal pre-K, less than a third of all states even require full-day kindergarten, finds a study by the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group of researchers who track policies related to education.
The ECS guide also lists how much class time is required for students in kindergarten and found striking differences throughout the country.
For example, in New Jersey 2 hours of attendance per day is considered full-day kindergarten, while in New Mexico students must attend 5 hours to meet the full-day kindergarten designation. New Mexico doesn’t require students to attend full-day programs and New Jersey only requires it for certain districts.
