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8.01.2024

Nevada Ranks Low in Preschool Access: Findings from the 2023 State of Preschool Report

A national report released in April 2024 ranks Nevada 40th in the nation for preschool enrollment for 4-year-olds. The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) released its annual State of Preschool report, which tracks preschool enrollment, funding, and quality across states. The 2023 State of Preschool Yearbook found that, in the 2022-2023 school year: 

• Nevada served 7% of 4-year-olds but did not enroll any 3-year-olds in state-funded preschool.  
• Total preschool enrollment was 2,481, an increase of 96 from the prior year. 
• State spending totaled $19,754,875, with an additional $3,733,874 in federal COVID-19 relief funds supporting the program, up $815,128 (4%), adjusted for inflation, since last year. 
• State spending per child (including federal relief funds) equaled $9,467 in 2022-2023, down $39 from 2021-2022, adjusted for inflation. 
• Nevada met 7 of 10 research-based quality standards benchmarks for minimum quality recommended by NIEER. 

“Our report on the 2022-2023 school year found that Nevada leaders had work to do to improve preschool enrollment and quality. Nevada should be praised for increasing state funding for preschool in recent years,” said W. Steven Barnett, Ph.D., NIEER’s senior co-director and founder. 

“However, the state faces critical choices about the future of preschool. We encourage Nevada to provide high quality early learning opportunities to more children while maintaining an adequate per child funding level. Bold steps are needed to ensure more children have access to high quality early learning experiences.” 

Nationally, the report finds that this is a critical moment for preschool. The nation has emerged, albeit unevenly, from the COVID-19 Pandemic. States are poised to make new progress toward serving more 3- and 4-year-olds in high-quality, full-day preschool programs. 

How each state chooses to move forward – and whether the federal government helps – will determine how much real progress is made. Most states have not committed to serving all children, and even those states that have often fall short. 

Most states need to increase funding per child substantially to enable providers to meet minimal standards for a high-quality, effective program. 

During the 2022-2023 school year, states enrolled over 1.63 million children in preschool, marking a 7% surge compared to the preceding year. Preschool enrollment reached 35% of 4-year-olds and 7% of 3-year-olds, with state expenditures reaching $11.73 billion—an 11% increase from 2021-2022 when adjusted for inflation. Notably, state spending per child surpassed $7,000 for the first time. 

However, despite this notable progress, most states still fell short of their pre-pandemic preschool enrollment. While several states made strides toward achieving universal preschool access, six states persisted in not allocating any funding for preschool programs. 

"With the pandemic in the rear view, it is time for states to choose whether they are going to support high-quality preschool and how,” said Allison Friedman-Krauss, Ph.D., the report's lead author. 

“Will states commit to serving all 4-year-olds? Will states serve both 3- and 4-year-olds? Will states make the investments needed to ensure that programs are effective? Will states support an equitable mixed-delivery model for preschool incorporating both existing child care programs and public schools? How will states recruit, support, and retain preschool teachers? These decisions will impact millions of children for years to come.”

What’s New to Support Access to Preschool in Nevada?

• The 2023 Legislative session passed the Early Childhood Innovation Literacy Program (AB400) to expand and enhance a literacy program for children under the age of 6. The $70 million allocated will be used to expand State Pre-K eligibility, such as expanding income eligibility and including 3-year-olds as well as developing other evidence-based literacy programs for FY24 and FY25 via competitive grants.
• In December 2022, Nevada was awarded a federal Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B–5) renewal grant for $10 million. Funds are being used to support three buckets of work: (1) Children and Families (i.e., kindergarten transition, parent leadership, and family engagement); (2) Workforce and Quality (i.e., professional development pathways, compensation model, QRIS coaching and specialized supports, and workforce and quality leadership); and (3) Comprehensive Systems (i.e., ECAC support, B–3 leadership and alignment, and cross-sector partnerships and collaboration).

Nevada Quality Standards Checklist

The State of Preschool report uses a checklist to assess quality in preschool programs. Nevada meets 7 of the 10 quality standards:

Recommendations from the National State of Preschool Report

The goal of high-quality preschool offered to every 3- and 4-year-old child is so far out of reach that every state can take action to improve on all three of the broad indicators NIEER monitors: 

1. Increase Access: Every state could improve on access as only DC can be said to be truly universal at ages 3 and 4. 
2. Improve Quality: Every state could improve quality standards, with even those meeting all 10 quality standards benchmarks acting to ensure they apply to all classrooms and moving beyond the minimums needed for quality preschool. 
3. Increase Funding: Adequate funding is needed to support expansion and higher quality, including salary parity for all teachers. Few, if any, states provide adequate funding for a full-day, high quality program and those that come closest reach only a fraction of age-eligible children. 

NIEER calls on every state to conduct an audit of access, quality standards, and funding adequacy for preschool education, beginning with the following key questions:

• How many 3- and 4-year-old children in our state — particularly those in low-income families — lack access to publicly-funded preschool education?
• Are our state’s quality standards consistent with what we want programs to do for our young children and their families? More specifically, do standards in our state require programs to have the features of high-quality programs found to provide strong supports for children’s learning and development?
• How much additional funding is required to increase access and to enable programs to provide preschool education of the quality we want? In conjunction with this, are preschool programs funded at a level that allows them to pay lead and assistant teachers wages and benefits comparable to those in the public schools? 

The report also recommends that the federal government do more to help states advance their preschool programs and to level the playing field across states by providing technical support and additional funding. 

NIEER recommends the federal government work more closely with states on policy coordination with particular attention to the role of Head Start in states with universal preschool programs. When Head Start reduces services to 3- and 4-year-olds in response to state preschool expansion this may undercut both the number of children served and quality, especially for the children Head Start serves. 

How to Get Involved

First 5 Nevada offers a range of resources to help parents, families, and other community advocates get involved in supporting improvements to programs and services in Nevada. Check out “Get Involved” page to learn more!

The 2023 State of Preschool Yearbook was supported with funding from the Heising-Simons Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information and detailed state-by-state profiles on quality, access, and funding, please visit www.nieer.org.  

The National Institute for Early Education Research at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, New Brunswick, NJ, supports early childhood education policy and practice through independent, objective research and the translation of research to policy and practice.