Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Photo source: Mayor Emanuel’s Instagram page.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a new preschool plan “to make free full-day preschool available to all Chicago 4-year-olds within four years,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

Chicago joins New York and other cities in pressing forward.

“Early education is a necessity for every child, not a luxury for some children,” Emanuel said in a press release. “Universal full-day pre-kindergarten ensures that every child in Chicago, regardless of their family’s resources, gets the great start that all children deserve.”

Emanuel says the program will close the achievement gap and have a generational impact on the city, helping children grow into better educated citizens.

The first step:

“Starting this fall, 3,700 free preschool seats will be offered to those with household incomes equivalent to about $46,000 or less for a family of four,” the Tribune notes. “The tab is expected to be about $20 million the first year, Emanuel said, and the city plans to tap existing Chicago Public Schools funds to cover the cost of adding that first round of seats.

“Then the free preschool gets exponentially more expensive, with the city counting on state lawmakers living up to their end of the school funding deal hammered out last year.”

“By 2021, there would be 24,000 free preschool seats under the Emanuel plan, at a cost to the cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools of about $175 million annually, he said. The figure includes capital improvements needed to make schools ready for preschoolers, as well as program changes, the mayor said.”

Emanuel can get the plan started — and keep it going if he is re-elected.

Emanuel also announced $2 million in funding for the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship. It “will expand the early childcare workforce by increasing access to coursework and credentials for educators who enroll in early childhood higher education programs,” the press release says.

These announcements build on progress that Chicago has already made.

In 2017, Emanuel boosted access to pre-K by creating a single point of entry: a citywide, common application that parents could use, one that would be accepted by more than 600 programs around the city.

In its second year, the application was redesigned “following consultation with focus groups that included more than 150 parents.” Parents can access the application at neighborhood centers and local libraries.

A city press release says Chicago is “the first city in the country to develop an online preschool application system so comprehensive that it spans all early learning program programming available to children aged three to five, including many no- or low-cost options.”

Emanuel’s efforts have won praise from New York City Mayor Bill di Blasio who says, “Pre-K for All has fundamentally transformed New York City… I applaud Mayor Emanuel for making this commitment and taking the critical first step to bringing universal pre-k to Chicago.”