Five Things States Can Do to Support High-Quality Kindergarten and the Early Grades

Principals and teachers make the daily decisions that shape what children experience in kindergarten through third grade. But they make those decisions inside conditions set by their school districts and state education agencies. In this post, I focus on the conditions, or systems, states control: funding formulas, laws, teacher licensure and preparation rules, guidance, and accountability systems. Those conditions can either enable joyful, rigorous learning or quietly undermine it. Here are five things states can do.

1. Fund kindergarten like it matters.

Kindergarten does not cost less than later grades, especially when it’s done well. Yet as of 2025, only 17 states and Washington, DC, require children to attend kindergarten. Only 14 states and DC require districts to offer a full day of kindergarten instruction. Four states don’t require districts to offer kindergarten at all.

Funding follows the same pattern. West Virginia funds kindergarten at the same level as first grade. New Hampshire, by contrast, funds kindergarten at half the per-student rate of grades one through twelve; it then tops up districts that offer a full day with a grant paid from Keno lottery revenue. When states fund kindergarten haphazardly, it is the first thing vulnerable to cuts. The optional status of kindergarten in many states also signals to families that it matters less than other grades.

Schools in affluent neighborhoods can fill funding gaps with local property taxes or PTA fundraising. Schools serving children from families with low incomes usually can’t. The state is the actor that can close that gap. It can make full-day kindergarten required, fund it through the regular formula at parity with first grade, and pay for the smaller class sizes and paraeducators that enable teachers to teach well and help young students thrive.

2. Put play in policy, and also plan to define it, fund it, and follow it.

Several states have written play-based or developmentally appropriate learning into law. New Hampshire amended its definition of an adequate education in 2018. Oklahoma’s 2021 Play to Learn Act bars districts from prohibiting teachers from using play-based learning in pre-K through third grade. Connecticut now requires play-based learning during instructional time every day in kindergarten. Maine requires district plans to address developmentally appropriate practice in K–2. Washington and Illinois attached developmentally appropriate language to full-day kindergarten laws, though those laws were primarily about access.

These laws matter. In Oklahoma, principals told me the law gave essential cover to educators who were already using play or wanted to. But none of these laws came with dedicated funding, and none required monitoring. After New Hampshire’s law passed, some district officials thought it simply meant free play, like recess. State leaders partnered with Dr. Kimberly Nesbitt at the University of New Hampshire to write an operational definition and coach teachers. In Connecticut, the most common question some consultants are hearing from principals is how play connects to curriculum.

States with play-based or developmentally appropriate kindergarten in law

States that legislate play should finish the job: Define play-based learning as a way of teaching content aligned to state standards, not as an extra or a break from learning. Be clear that it works alongside explicit instruction in foundational skills like phonics, not instead of it. Then pay for the professional learning and resources teachers need to do it well. Finally, track whether anything changes in classrooms over time.

3. Invest in capacity, not just mandates.

As Elliot Regenstein has argued, requiring change without investing in the capacity to carry it out rarely produces lasting results. The strongest state efforts I’ve seen pair incentives with real support.

Alabama’s Pre-K–3rd Grade Integrated Approach began with 35 classrooms in 2017–18. By 2025–26, it had reached 454 classrooms in 29 districts. Every participating teacher receives $20,000 for classroom materials, such as a pretend-play kitchen, a sand-and-water table, and blocks. Every participating principal attends a Pre-K–3 Leadership Academy. 

In Maine, the Department of Education adapted Boston’s open-source Focus curriculum into K for ME. It then used grant dollars to train teachers, build learning communities, and equip classrooms for play. 

Massachusetts launched a Playful Learning Institute in which Boston Public Schools coaches work directly with teachers and principals in participating districts. Massachusetts also offers a cautionary tale. For 16 years, its Kindergarten Development Grant helped districts expand full-day kindergarten and improve quality. When the state stopped funding it in 2017, most districts found money to keep the full day. But in several districts, class sizes went up, paraeducator positions were cut, and quality initiatives ended. Grants can start transformation, but states have to plan from day one for what sustains it.

4. Prepare the adults for how young children learn best.

In most states, a kindergarten through third grade teacher can hold either an elementary license or an early childhood license. Those two credentials come with very different preparation. Elementary programs tend to emphasize strategies suited to older students. Early childhood programs focus more on child development, emerging readers, and teaching through play. Early-grade teachers need both: strong content knowledge and a grounding in how young children learn. 

A few states have acted on this. Pennsylvania split its licenses into pre-K–4 and 4–8. Massachusetts requires kindergarten teachers to hold an early childhood license. In addition to pre-service training, teachers need ongoing, curriculum-based professional learning and coaching to deliver high-quality instructional materials using teaching strategies most appropriate for K-3 students.

Principals matter too. They set the expectations for what good teaching looks like. Many elementary principals never taught the early grades. Only one state, Illinois, requires early childhood content in principal preparation. A principal who walks into a busy, talkative kindergarten and sees chaos will shut it down, no matter what state law says. States can change preparation and licensure requirements and fund ongoing professional learning for principals.

5. Connect pre-K through third grade, in agencies, guidance, and data.

States have spent two decades investing in pre-K. But when pre-K gains “fade out” by third grade, a significant reason is that children aren’t getting what they need in kindergarten and the early elementary grades. Boston’s experience points the other way: children who had more aligned experiences from pre-K through first grade showed larger gains in literacy and math.

Alignment has to start at the state level. In many states, early childhood and K–12 sit in different offices or even different agencies, and districts receive conflicting messages as a result. Guidance can help, but only if people use it. New Jersey’s updated kindergarten implementation guidelines run more than one hundred pages (and are filled with useful information). In many states, however, resources like that go largely unread. States need to promote their guidance and build professional learning around it.

Data is the other gap. Federal testing and accountability begin in third grade, so state leaders have less information about what happens in kindergarten through second grade. In education, we know that what gets measured tends to get the most attention. States can build ways to understand the quality of children’s early-grade experiences, not just their third grade test scores. Without that, kindergarten will keep being shaped by pressure to raise scores later rather than by what we know about how five- and six-year-olds learn. We need more creative thinking on how to measure quality in the early grades.

None of this is simple, and no state has all five components in place. But the pattern across the states I visited is clear. Laws signal what matters, and funding, capacity, prepared adults, and aligned systems determine whether anything changes for children. Families with means already choose playful, content-rich early learning for their children; as researcher Dale Farran has asked, why wouldn’t that be right for every child? States have the tools to make that experience the norm rather than the exception.