In case you missed it, on the occasion of President Obama’s State of the Union commitment to early childhood development, the PBS Newshour reran a 2011 report from John Merrow, the ultimate education reporter, on pre-K efforts in Chicago. I don’t seem to be able to embed in here, but click below to see it on the PBS site. It’s a very useful presentation of the challenges of access and quality in public pre-K programs. The transcript is here if you want to scan it quickly.
Watch Chicago Takes Early Aim at ‘Achievement Gap’ in Schools on PBS.
And here is John Merrow’s 2002, hour-long report on “The Promise of Preschool.” It is not at all out-dated.
Advancing New Hampshire Public Education 
The $19,000/student program profiled in this program makes a difference… and here’s why: the program starts during the “first 1000 days” of a child’s life instead of waiting until a child is 3 or 4 and provides 11 hours/day support instead of two-and-a-half hours per day. Bottom line: we cannot close the learning gap associated with poverty on the cheap…