The DC Policy Helping Moms and Kids Get Ahead

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I trade in my college student ID for a lanyard and a name tag at a local elementary school to spend my afternoon with the district’s youngest and brightest minds. Kids, often unfiltered, naturally funny, and overwhelmingly aware of their parent’s lives will sometimes let things slip when skipping on the playground or waiting for an emotional support ice pack. In early autumn, I was waiting with a preschooler who was one of the last to be picked up, as her mom waltzed in the door around 5:58 pm, the child rolled her eyes and said, “mommy is last because she works for the bad president.” It seems nearly everyone in Washington has the same nagging thoughts during rush hour.

Pre-K rocks! Through the messy moments, learning opportunities and often laughable mistakes, I cannot doubt that preschool is one of the most formative times of a child’s life. For a kid, sharing a ball on the playground can feel like giving their puppy away, breaking a crayon during coloring time is sensory overload and navigating afterschool hours with a not so nice playmate feels like interning on the hill during a government shutdown. But as difficult as these little things are, the kids triumph day in and day out, putting the pieces together to make sense of the crazy life of a four-year-old.

The children I work with are a particularly lucky bunch, but they might not know it yet. Preschool has always been written in the stars for them; they attend a private school in Northwest D.C. Not all little Washingtonians have the privilege of a private education at the age of four, but what is guaranteed to all those little minds is free universal free pre-K.

Washington DC has the biggest guarantee on universal pre-K. Since 2008, D.C. has been the model for national policy proposals by offering full universal pre-K to three and four-year-olds.. Florida, Georgia, Vermont, West Virginia and New York City also offer some sort of universal pre-K programs within their states, but nothing quite measures up to the program in D.C.

This program bridges the gap for children living in different socioeconomic households. Universal pre-K in D.C. has created the opportunity for schools in low-income areas to have higher retention rates, while children experience a tight-knit community with peers from diverse backgrounds. The Urban Institute’s study of universal pre-K in D.C. showed that it has the ability to “close opportunity gaps and improve language development, literacy, math skills, and future earnings.”

Universal pre-K in D.C. is not just a win for the children, but it is also a win for their mothers. The Center for American Progress found that maternal labor force participation increased by about 12% since the program was introduced to residents, with 10% attributed to universally free pre-K in the District. The D.C. Office of Revenue analysis also championed universal PreK as a way for single parents to get back to work when their children become eligible.

D.C. is a unique jurisdiction that allows for universal pre-K to thrive. With the city being highly populated, fairly centralized, and flooded with different economic groups, this universal pre-K model thrives. The results of universal pre-K might vary across the United States in more rural areas that do not reflect the same geopolitical environment that D.C. has.

On Tuesday, we all sat in a circle and one of my children had the honor to ask the question of the day to his peers. Instead of wondering about Halloween costumes or the class’s favorite dinosaur, he asked his classmates what they were most thankful for. No surprise to me, three preschoolers said they were most thankful for their teachers, not barbies or blocks, or even their pets at home. It is the teachers that make a difference in the first years of school, and Washington is a city that provides that to every child.