Christina Satkowski, a program associate with the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program, said it was important to increase toddlers’ access to pre-kindergarten programs such as Head Start.

With so many pre-K education programs available now, though, “finding ways to coordinate all these programs is very important,” she said.

“Many states and school districts recognize that pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten provide important foundations for educational success,” she wrote recently on the Early Ed Watch blog on New America’s Web site. “But these programs only get us halfway there. Pre-k investments will pay off only if they are backed up with a comprehensive plan to align standards and curricula through third grade and beyond.”...