What Can Universal Prekindergarten Learn From Special Education?

Universal prekindergarten (UPK) refers to the goal of making available to families of all three- and four-year-olds a program of services that provides high quality education for children and helps prepare them for a successful entry to kindergarten. Although many factors have contributed to current efforts to advocate for this goal, two stand out as especially important. First, many children today, perhaps as many as 40 percent, enter kindergarten not ready to succeed with the types of activities and expectations typically offered by schools. The transition to kindergarten is a formative period in shaping a child’s later success in school, but it is unlikely that changing the entry process alone will correct this problem. Only a sustained and comprehensive program of services during the preschool period can hope to alter trajectories in a way that significantly improves the odds of success.

Second, many children today, perhaps as many as 60 percent of the children in organized childcare, receive care and educational experiences that are not considered to be of high quality. Research consistently shows a relationship between quality of care and both immediate and long-term outcomes for children. This relationship is evident in both social-emotional and academic outcomes. It is unlikely that dramatic improvements will come from activities such as changing state childcare regulations or providing training and consultation to existing childcare centers. A coordinated system of services with high standards for personnel, leadership, and programming is needed if substantial changes in quality are to occur.

Children from low-income families and those from ethnic minority groups are especially at risk for early school failure and lack of access to high quality childcare or early educational experiences. Targeted initiatives such as Head Start attempt to provide some services for children who meet certain eligibility criteria. Universal prekindergarten, however, is based on the assumption that society is best served by a coordinated program that offers access to all children, not just children in need.

Questions such as whether universal prekindergarten is a desirable social policy, who would coordinate these programs, how they would be financed, and what the nature of the curriculum and other activities would be are currently being discussed at many levels. Virtually every state is now actively engaged in discussions about prekindergarten programs, and many different models are now being proposed.

For one group of children, those who have identified disabilities, a form of UPK has been available for more than 15 years. What lessons can be learned from this effort that could help inform current UPK initiatives? What would be the ramifications of UPK for children with disabilities and the programs that serve them? This working paper addresses these questions by describing the history and current status of programs serving preschoolers with disabilities and discussing selected issues as they can inform current discussions about UPK.