Universal Preschool

Introduction In the Spring of the 2006/2007 school year, Hillary Clinton made a stop to a Miami Beach elementary school where she tool student and the press that, “As president, I will establish universal pre-kindergarten education…so that every four-year-old child in America can attend a government-funded preschool” (Miller, 2007, p. 48). Although this proclamation may seem somewhat odd given all of the challenges currently facing America’s public education system, the reality is that support and momentum for universal preschool programs has increased dramatically in recent years while more political and community leaders pushing for government sponsored universal preschool programs. With the realization the universal preschool programs have become such an important issue for the development of American public education, there is a direct impetus to examine the current reasons for such notable changes in attitudes toward these programs. Using this as a basis for investigation, this research seeks to provide a more integral understanding of the reasons for universal preschool programs and the benefits and drawbacks of these proposals. This research concludes with a discussion of who should pay for these preschool programs and what steps should be taken to ensure that they are uniformly implemented in all school districts.
Literature Review
Reasons for Universal Preschool Although the push for the development of universal preschool is not new, a critical review of the current interest in the type of schooling suggests that there are a myriad of reasons as to why policymakers and educators are aggressively pursing policies to develop these programs. With this in mind, it is important to provide a comprehensive review of the current literature by examining the wide range of reasons that have been offered for the development of these programs. By examining the reasons behind the current push for universal preschool programs, it will be possible to

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