Pre-K Now's vision is a nation in which every child enters kindergarten prepared to succeed. Our mission is to collaborate with advocates and policymakers to lead a movement for high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds. We fulfill this mission by:
- providing targeted financial and technical assistance to advocates and other leaders working to secure policy changes and public funds that will improve the availability and quality of state-funded pre-k programs;
- strengthening the capacity and skills of early childhood advocates and state leaders to secure policy changes and funding; and
- waging a targeted campaign to educate and mobilize key policymakers and sectors of the public, at the state and national levels, on the severity of the American school readiness problem and the potential that high-quality pre-k for all has to address the problem and boost K-12 student achievement.
Pre-K Now is a part of a major grant-making strategy of The Pew Charitable Trusts and is charged with assisting national and state leaders and the public in the design and implementation of sound, research-based policies that support voluntary access to high-quality pre-kindergarten for all three- and four-year-old children in this nation. Originally founded in 2002 as the Trust for Early Education and housed at the Education Trust, Pre-K Now became a project of the Institute for Educational Leadership in 2005. In January 2009, Pre-K Now became a part of the Pew Center on the States, a division of the Trusts that identifies and advances state policy solutions.
Since 2002 Pre-K Now has provided more than $10 million and thousands of hours of counseling and technical assistance on pre-k advocacy in a set of carefully selected states. In that time, state funding for pre-k programs has more than doubled and enrollment has increased by more than 30 percent. These victories have created incredible momentum within the pre-k movement and valuable lessons for all states to draw upon.
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