In states across the country, the fiscal picture has become extremely dire, and lawmakers are struggling to reconcile growing public needs with shrinking revenues. This challenging budget year has highlighted the best as well as the worst practices in high-quality pre-kindergarten policy-making and has separated the true champions for young children from more tepid supporters.
Decades of research have documented measurable gains in young children's school readiness and a benefit-cost ratio for states of 7:1 from high-quality pre-k. For FY10, lawmakers in most states continued to recognize the importance of both early education's proven benefits for children and families and its strong returns on investment.