Research shows that third-grade reading proficiency is the most significant predictor of future success, including graduation rates, earning potential, crime, and health. Mastery of foundational literacy skills during preschool bolsters students' ability to learn to read before fourth grade when the transition from learning to read to reading to…

Public PreK programs are an increasingly popular policy tool to equalize early learning opportunities. Programs can be universally available or targeted to support children's readiness. At the intersection of early childhood and K-12 education, their hybrid status can be difficult for families to negotiate. Based on interviews completed in 2018,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed preschool education, expanding beyond traditional methods to include digital learning innovations, even in early childhood education. This study investigates the implementation of Islamic education through an Online Preschool Program in Indonesia. Using a qualitative approach, the research involved 20 parents…

Based on arguments about the need for greater individual freedom, school choice was introduced in Sweden in the 1990s. Swedish municipalities now set up local school choice systems, whose organization varies between municipalities. This study is based on interviews with three politicians and two civil servants from two average-sized municipalities…

This paper presents empirical evidence on kindergarten admission preparation services in Hong Kong. Parents increasingly turn to tutoring companies for a range of services, such as social skills training, portfolio editing, mock interviews, and parental consultation. We used qualitative methods to capture the views of parents, teachers, tutors,…

The middle-classes use school choice as a strategy of class reproduction and comparative advantage. In this article, we show how middle-class parental school choice strategies are spatially dependent and how schooling preferences and final choices are bounded by the social and educational characteristics of the local education market of their…

Background: The United States does not have a comprehensive, publicly funded early care and education (ECE) system. As a result, disparities in access and participation in quality ECE in the U.S. are well-documented. Low and middle-income families participate less frequently in ECE compared with higher-income families, often due to conflicts with…

Policy makers in California intend to provide free preschool to all 4-year-olds solely within public schools by 2026, becoming the nation's second largest single pre-K program in the United States after Head Start. This initiative builds on the state's existing Transitional Kindergarten (TK) option that has served a modest share of 4-year-olds…