Update on Child Care in the Public Schools

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Some topics generate more heat than others. When I mentioned in ExchangeEveryDay that Exchange would be running a status report on child care in the public schools, we were inundated with hundreds of messages from early childhood professionals expressing their strong views on the subject. This high interest is not surprising. Preschool programs operated by the public schools are the fastest growing segment of the early childhood market. Anne Mitchell estimates that state funding of Pre-K programs has risen from $25 million in 1970 to nearly $2 billion in 2000 (Mitchell). In 1975, public schools operated 3.2% of all child care programs in the USA (Coelen). By 2000, public schools were operating 22% of all centers (Wilson Marketing Group). Today, all but a handful of states have state-funded Pre-K programs. The Wilson Marketing Group provides these examples of state activity in 2002 . . . • California provided over $313 million ...