Tricia Pietravalle remembers her days in preschool: Playing in the sandbox, doing some painting, listening to stories. So when she met with her son’s preschool teachers, she was taken aback when they showed her “this whole grid of how they’re evaluating him, academically, socially, emotionally.”
Joseph was learning letters and numbers in full-day classes and making connections she didn’t expect from a 3-year-old. “It was overwhelming — in a good way,” she said.
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For generations, children have started school with kindergarten, when they’re 5. Not in the District. For most families in the city, school now starts at 3.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for a dramatic shift in early childhood education: free public preschool for all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds. Opponents voiced concern about increased spending and ineffective government programs. Supporters argued that the initiative could jump-start learning, using the latest brain research to erase some of the disadvantages faced by children from low-income families.
The District is already doing something more ambitious. Nearly 13,000 of the city’s roughly 15,000 3- and 4-year-olds are attending public preschool.
“Any 3-year-old in the District is guaranteed a spot to be at a full-day preschool program. That’s basically unheard-of,” said Daphna Bassok, an assistant professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.
So as national and state leaders consider a major expansion of public education, the city offers an example of how that that can play out on the ground.
Inside Amidon-Bowen Elementary School, where an AppleTree Early Learning public charter school has taken over a couple of classrooms, 3-year-olds were buzzing about happily one recent morning. Some were playing with blocks; some had puppets and were making shadows. Pietravalle’s daughter Lucy and several other children sat at a small table, and teacher Briana Bourne asked, “What do you want to know about outer space?”
When Lucy said she wanted to learn about planets, Bourne asked, “What sounds do you hear in the word ‘planet’?”
Lucy wrote a P on her paper, and Bourne gave her a high-five. “What other sounds do you hear in PLLAANNETT?”
It’s a rare opportunity for the city, said Jack McCarthy of the AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation, which runs public preschools at seven sites in the District, including the one in Southwest Washington that two of Pietravalle’s children attend.
“Here is a place where funding is in place, universal preschool is policy,” McCarthy said. If the quality could be improved and ensured for all students, he said, “we could close the achievement gap here in five years.”
The president’s call — outlined last week without any funding plan — reflects a growing national movement to enroll children in public school before kindergarten. Federal Head Start programs have been available for low-income children for decades, and many special education students start school before kindergarten. But more states are adding classes for 4-year-olds.
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