Children stretch at Los Angeles Universal Preschool.
Credit: LAUP (Los Angeles Universal Preschool)
Children stretch at Los Angeles Universal Preschool.
April 19, 2021
California continues to lag behind other states in preschool access and quality and the pandemic didn’t help matters, according to a national report that ranks all state-funded preschool programs.
Covid-19 plays a pivotal role in the “State of Preschool Yearbook,” an annual report card on state-subsidized early learning released today, published by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), based at Rutgers University. This annual survey focused on the 2019-2020 school year, which was upended by the public health crisis. While researchers say much of the data in this report reflect the preschool landscape before lockdowns began, there is also a special section on the impact the epidemic has had on state-funded preschool enrollment, funding, and quality across the country.
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“This has been a challenging year for everyone,” said De Guevara. “It’s understandable that we are not necessarily top of mind with donors and funders, because we are all distracted and a bit overwhelmed. My approach is really applying the old-fashion method of picking up the phone and saying ‘Hi, how are you?’ It’s incredible to me how responsive this community has been to our expressed needs.
Cervantes comes to Storyteller with 23 years of experience in the early childhood education field. She believes every child deserves a high-quality early learning program and that ECE educators should be recognized for their research-based approach to development.