pre-K

The pre-K was completed in 90 days in order to open at the beginning of the school year.

664 pre-kindergarten was built in part to address the overcrowding within Community School District 20 and in part to address the City of New York's efforts to provide free full-day pre-K to all four-year-olds.

The Program of Requirements (POR), or the pre-K's functional program, was developed by the SCA.

"We had to address the challenge of developing a dedicated circulation spine within the pre-K's interior space, while ensuring an inviting and happy environment for children.

But the new principal, Anissa Brown Dennis, expanded collaboration and professional development for teachers, implemented an aligned reading and math curriculum from pre-K through third grade, and offered summer learning and after-school programs for struggling students.

Advocates of universal pre-K are nothing if not visionary.

Curiously, there's much less discussion of pre-K's potential to spur improvement in the schools children enter after they leave pre-K.

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT HIGH-QUALITY PREschool has a positive impact on children's lives: Adult alumni of high-quality preschools have higher education attainment, employment, and earnings, and are less likely to be involved in crime than adults from similar backgrounds who didn't attend pre-K as children.

The trouble is, these academic differences disappear by third grade--a phenomenon knows as "fade-out." That's fodder for conservative pre-K critics.

But evidence shows that fade-out is not a failure of pre-K; it is more deeply connected with children's ongoing education.

Rather than fearing fade-out, or trying to downplay it, pre-K supporters should highlight it as an argument for improving early elementary school programs.