When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, one of the earliest trends education experts noticed came from anecdotal evidence: It appeared parents were keeping their kids home instead of sending them to preschool.
Later, data would confirm this.
The National Center for Education Statistics reported a historic 3% decline in public school enrollment during the 2020-21 school year over the year before — concentrated primarily in prekindergarten, which fell by 22%.
Additional data from Head Start confirmed that between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 school years, their enrollment for preschoolers plummeted by 33%.
Recently, numbers suggest that enrollment among these youngest children has begun to rebound — albeit not entirely.
And while the pandemic's impact on preschool enrollment has been well-established, how its impact varied by state, student race and socioeconomic background is lesser known.
An analysis from the U.S.Census Bureau released this week seems to fill in those blanks. Here are highlights from the bureau's analysis of preschool enrollment between 2019 and 2021:
Dive Awards
