The 2012 "State Preschool Yearbook" profiles state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. The "Yearbook" compares each state program's standards against a checklist of 10 research-based quality standards benchmarks. Although the benchmarks against which the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) checks states are not guarantees of quality, they are consistent with what research has found to be highly effective. With the inclusion of Arizona's First Things First Prekindergarten Scholarship program, 40 states plus D.C. offered pre-K in school year 2011-2012. That is one of the few pieces of good news in a year dominated by significant negative changes in enrollment, resources, and quality standards. Sections in this executive summary provide further details for each one of these areas. A list of benchmarks and a summary of the supporting research are provided. This year's report shows that as states emerge from the recession, pre-K continues to suffer, even as the number of students whose families lack the means to provide them with high-quality preschool education programs has increased to an all time high. Much work remains to be done to put pre-K back on track. Appropriations for 2012-2013 were up modestly, though how well actual expenditures track these figures remains to be seen. Reports on proposed state budgets for 2013-2014 are also hopeful, though nothing shown indicates that pre-K nationally has fully recovered from past cuts, much less reversed the negative trend in funding per child. Indeed, the most positive recent development may be at the federal level. The president put pre-K on the national agenda in his State of the Union address and subsequently proposed to provide states with $75 billion in matching funds to increase access to high-quality pre-K over the next 10 years. [For the full report, see ED541941.]