Early-Childhood More Segregated than K-12 Programs
October 1, 2019
In Education Dive, Linda Jacobson reports on how early-childhood programs of all kinds are “twice as likely as kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms to have all black or all Hispanic children,” and are “also less likely to be ‘somewhat integrated’ with 10-20% of children being black or Hispanic, according to a new Urban Institute study.” Jacobson notes that “the original Preschool Development Grant (PDG) program in 2014 included language encouraging states to ‘integrate, to the extent practicable’ preschool programs in ‘economically diverse, inclusive settings.’” However, whether “the new PDG program for children from birth through age 5, now part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, will support integration efforts depends largely on how the 46 states that received initial funding for a needs assessment wrote their plans.”