As the leader of an early education nonprofit, I’ve been encouraged to see President Joe Biden proposing a significant investment of $110 billion to fund universal PreK as part of the American Families Plan. If the investment is solely in site-based programs, however, it will not be accessible to all students; nor will it be equitable—and thus, it won’t be truly universal.
Efforts to enroll more children into brick-and-mortar PreK programs are laudable and should be pursued, but they will always leave out some children. Whether that’s due to them living in areas too rural to support physical PreK programs, or because their caretakers lack transportation, have work conflicts with the hours their local provider operates, or encounter any number of other reasons, some children will not be able to access site-based PreK.
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