Additional Resources

For additional information on the way state early care and education governance impacts the flow of federal and state pre-K funds to local systems, see our supplementary blog.

To read more about the origin stories of some of the programs mentioned in this brief and their governance structures, the following pieces provide additional insight:

• Bryce Covert, “The Miracle of Bill de Blasio’s Universal Pre-K,” New York Magazine, December 26, 2024.
• Erick Trickey, “How Julián Castro Bet on 4-Year-Olds to Transform San Antonio,” Politico Magazine, August 17, 2017.
• Anna North, “What This Oregon County’s ‘Preschool for All’ Victory Means for Child Care in America,” Vox, November 4, 2020.
• “Founding Story: From An Innovative Concept to a National Model,” Denver Preschool Program, September 6, 2024.
• Greg Landsman, “Where Every Kid Has Access to a High-Quality Preschool” interview by Reginald Harris of Children’s Funding Project, November 15, 2022.
• Conor Williams, “Laboratories of Democracy: Washington, DC, Showed How to Do Universal Pre-K Right,” Vox, August 12, 2019.

Table 2 below tracks which of the 75 largest U.S. cities either enroll at least 30 percent of four-year-olds or contribute local funds to early childhood education based on CityHealth’s 2024 quality standards.

The ECE Implementation Working Group is a group of early childhood education leaders from cities and counties across the country. These leaders gather to share best practices from their experience working with families and local communities, and their work aligns with the New Practice Lab’s theory of change: that implementation lessons should inform policy design from the start. More information about the Working Group can be found here. You can reach out to us with questions about the group and its work at npl_work@newamerica.org.