By Lillian Mongeau, The Hechinger Report, February 29, 2020
Ameykay Stocks, a mail carrier and mother of five, has sent all of her children, now ages 5 to 16, to her local public schools here from the year they turned 3.
Few families in America have such an option. Nationally, only 68 percent of 4-year-olds and 40 percent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in preschool in 2017, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.* Most, but not all, preschool programs receive some public funding, which makes it difficult to say exactly how many students benefit from such funding, according to Steve Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research. Hardly any children younger than 3 are enrolled in publicly funded child care of any kind. These percentages are low compared to the rest of the developed world, according the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
But Washington, D.C. is one of a growing number of cities to offer public preschool and it is more generous than most: all 4-year-olds and most 3-year-olds living here, regardless of income, get a spot in a free public preschool program.
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