Early Childhood Education Commons^™

A Descriptive Policy Analysis Of State-Level Universal Preschool Adoption, Holly Higgins Wilcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Presently, the United States does not have a publicly funded, comprehensive, universal ECE system. The fragmented and piecemeal approach to providing ECE creates social injustice and inequity for many young children (Kagan & Roth, 2017; Kagan, 2009). With the absence of comprehensive and streamlined federal ECE policy, several states have attempted to at least provide universal preschool to all four-year-old children. For states that aim to adopt universal preschool, it is critical to understand the factors, political conditions, and policy environments conducive to creating preschool policy change. Although many states would like to provide universal preschool, very few have been …