Last Wednesday, Governor Cuomo outlined his plan to expand pre-K to 3-year olds in New York State's highest-need communities. The governor is promising $25 million to fund this pilot program, which will add more than 5,000 seats for 3-year old children across New York. As we discussed in our blog post last week, the word gap starts early. By the time children are three years old, those who grow up in professional families have vocabularies of about 1,116 words; those in working class families have vocabularies of about 749 words; and those in families on public assistance have vocabularies of about 525 words.
Sherry Cleary, PDI’s executive director, gave a powerful analysis of the positive impacts of early education, where she provides statistical research demonstrating how early education can prevent the achievement gap and word gap and provide other substantial short- and long-term benefits to all children.
Click here to read more and watch excerpts from the meeting.