Key Issues in Connecticut

Despite its current budget challenges and its lack of investment during the state’s boom years, Connecticut is well-positioned to address the critical early care and early education needs of its young children.

Education Pressures. Federal No Child Left Behind accountability requirements coupled with Connecticut’s nagging achievement gap among its low-income children create substantial pressure for a plan to address the state’s "preparation gap" in which too many children arrive at kindergarten "unready" for school success.

Early Education Expansion. The Connecticut State Board of Education has endorsed a policy calling for universal access to quality half-day preschool programs, by the end of this decade, for all of the state’s three- and four-year olds whose families request it. At the same time, some 15,000 three- and four-year olds in our most economically-challenged communities await access to full-day, full-year school readiness programs.

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