For years, the students being enrolled in Chicago Public Schools’ full-day pre-K were largely from White families living in the city’s wealthiest areas. But after reforms were made to make pre-K more accessible to all families, the number of Black students and those from the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods has tripled, according to a new study.
The report “Closer to Home,” published Wednesday by education researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago, Start Early and the UChicago Consortium on School Research, examined pre-K access based on geographic distance and availability from 2010 to 2016. Researchers found that after policy changes to improve equitable enrollment were made in 2013, students of color and those who came from low-income households were up to three times more likely to enroll in full-day pre-K...