"Starting at 3" is an Education Law Center-led initiative to support advocacy to establish a legal right to early childhood education. The project collects and disseminates research, information and strategies on how to secure a legal right to early education through legislation and/or court decree, and provides direct technical assistance to attorneys and advocates involved in litigation asserting the right to early education. The project is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

ELC is leading the Starting at 3 inititative because of its success in establishing the right to early education in the Abbott v. Burke education adequacy litigation. Abbott requires the provision of full-day kindergarten and well-planned, high quality preschool for all three- and four-year olds in New Jersey’s high poverty, urban communities. Abbott has also triggered legislative expansion of full-day kindergarten and preschool in more than 100 other (non-urban) communities. Abbott is the first judicially mandated preschool program in the nation, and now serves as a model that other states are seeking to emulate.

ELC is working in partnership with the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), which provides objective, nonpartisan information and research on early education. Research on the benefits of early education played a critical role in shaping the contours of the Abbott preschool mandate, and will undoubtedly play an important role in other states. NIEER’s executive director, Dr. Steven Barnett, has provided expert testimony on the benefits of early education in Abbott and, more recently, in Hancock v. Driscoll (MA). ELC is also working with Rutgers-Newark Institute on Education Law and Policy (IELP) to develop and disseminate legal research on the right to early education. IELP is an interdisciplinary research center focusing on methods to improve urban public education.

If you are interested in learning more about this project, please contact: