With Universal Pre-K, Cambridge’s Win is America’s Loss

Universal pre-school is coming to Cambridge. In an afternoon meeting on Feb. 14, Cambridge City Councilors in conjunction with the Cambridge School Committee discussed the plan to increase accessibility, affordability, and quality of childhood education for all. The goal – as outlined by Lisa Grant, the director of Birth to 3rd Grade Partnership and Ellen M. Semonoff, the assistant city manager – is to successfully implement universal pre-K by 2026.

Specific implementation details aside, the debate over universal pre-K’s value is no-brainer: We are, as usual, supportive of any initiative that increases the quality or accessibility of education. Learning has profound, intrinsic value; promoting knowledge and it’s pursuit is inherently good, for almost any age group. That’s only more true for universal education programs and other policies likely to have a positive impact on wealth redistribution. Cambridge’s embrace of universal pre-school is a massive win for the city, no caveats.

Well, maybe just one: Cambridge’s victory is emblematic of America’s loss.

In early 2021, President Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress and proudly touted his American Families Plan. The plan, part of president’s broader Build Back Better framework, would have offered Americans — not just Cantabrigians — two years of universal, high quality preschool, expanding access to free pre-k for over six million children and arguably revolutionizing the American education system.

It was too good to be true.

Barely 10 months later, Biden has changed tune. With large chunks of his domestic agenda fatally stalled, the president’s first State of the Union address featured a single, brief reference to universal education programs, reflecting an uglier political reality. Two stubborn centrist senators and later, the momentum for reform is gone; the window to act seems tight shut. Like with the tolerated expiration the child tax credit — and the subsequent, predictable increase in childhood poverty — our political institutions failed to secure the best for their youngest citizens.

Cambridge’s push for pre-K is thus no doubt laudable — but it’s also only significant against the backdrop of this federal defeat, only notable because of its absence elsewhere.

This regrettable national context also risks creating a self-perpetuating, vicious dynamic. As we lose or fail to increase programs at the federal level, only a very specific subset of localities are likely to even consider reproducing them in a smaller scale — places like the “rich, brainy” Cambridge, with its average household income roughly $30,000 above the national average and heavy blue tint. Wealthier tax bases will enjoy better funded educational programs, everyone else will struggle. That trend is already obvious: Pre-K quality and access varies broadly across the country, with places like Washinton D.C. spending over seven times as much on pre-K per child as states like Mississippi.

That doesn’t mean that Cambridge should not, in fact, aggressively pursue the kind of ambitious social programs that the U.S. writ large badly needs. Good policy is good policy, and local programs can be a blueprint for national equivalents. But make no mistake — our city council’s success is congress’ failing. America lost a chance to radically improve access to education, local victories aside.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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