Citylab, July 15, 2019: How US childcare is segregated: A Brooklyn story
When talking about school-aged children, the benefits of mixing kids from different class backgrounds are substantial and well-documented. But for kids too young for kindergarten, the effects of economic integration are far from understood. This is largely due to lack of opportunity.
In the United States, government funding for childcare has almost always been reserved for the poor, with everyone else forced to seek private arrangements defined by what they can—and can not—afford. In other words, segregation by class has been baked into the United States’s approach to childcare, leaving few opportunities to explore economic integration.
Thanks to the recent explosion of public pre-K programs around the country, that’s starting to change. Because many of these programs are open and free to all regardless of family income, they offer a first big possibility to create integrated classes. Last November, New York City announced a new goal to create pre-K classes diverse in race and class. Meanwhile, a recent study of pre-K programs provides some of the most promising emerging evidence yet that economically mixed preschools could be a key to bolstering learning for young children born into economic disadvantage.
