Essential Question 4

About this Essential Question

This question examines children’s access to full-day kindergarten programs that put them on a path toward success in early grades. The transition to kindergarten is a crucial milestone in a child’s educational journey, and access to full-day programs can impact learning outcomes. System policies and practices can broaden or limit access to kindergarten. For example, the availability of transportation, program costs, and the geographical distribution of full-day programs can affect families’ ability to participate. State and local education leaders, district administrators, and policy makers can use this question to understand whether all students in their jurisdiction have access to full-day kindergarten opportunities and identify opportunities to expand participation.  

Probing Questions

Use these probing questions to dive deeper on the essential question or approach it through a different lens. Feel free to adapt these questions further or come up with your own.  

• What factors are most important to families when considering kindergarten programs (for example, full-day schedule, engaging curriculum, certified teachers, transportation, affordability)?
• How can families access information about local kindergarten options? How responsive is this information to their specific needs, such as their home language and top priorities for kindergarten programs?
• How does kindergarten enrollment vary based on where families live? How does enrollment vary by student race and ethnicity, home language, income level, and/or disability status?
• How do system-level decisions and actions—such as program location, registration requirements, and transportation access—support or hinder access to quality, full-day kindergarten for all children?
• How might we improve access to quality, full-day kindergarten? What system-level practices and conditions could we strengthen or improve? Who needs to be involved? 

Explore Data for This Question

To help you answer this question for your own community, you can search for your state, county, or neighborhood in the Urban Institute data tool linked below. The tool integrates all available federal data from the metrics relevant to this essential question. Compare data between geographies, over time, and by breakdowns across race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and more. Search for your own state using the lefthand sidebar or click “Restart” to view data by county or neighborhood.

EXPLORE DATA