Cleveland Kindergarten Readiness Snapshot
PRE4CLE is committed to evaluating our community’s progress toward Cleveland’s preschool goals using both child-level and system-level indicators. The annual Cleveland Kindergarten Readiness Snapshot is an online tool that includes these indicators along with important context about the preschool landscape.
What is Kindergarten Readiness?
When PRE4CLE began in 2014, only 16% of children entering kindergarten in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District were prepared for school. PRE4CLE is working to increase the number of children who are enrolled in high-quality preschool, leading to increased school readiness, as measured by Ohio’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA).
Our local results support what study after study has found: When kids attend high-quality preschool, they're better prepared for kindergarten.
Children who are kindergarten ready demonstrate:
Early literacy and math skills
Enthusiasm for learning
Positive interactions with teachers and peers
The ability to succeed in a classroom environment
A Community Commitment
Cleveland’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment results demonstrate that kids who are enrolled in high-quality preschool are better prepared for kindergarten. That’s why our community is so focused on increasing the number of high-quality preschool seats and ensuring that all available high-quality preschool seats are enrolled.
Preschool providers, including those in CMSD, private preschools, Head Start centers, child care centers, and family child care homes have joined our commitment to high-quality and dedicated their time and resources to earn high-quality ratings. PRE4CLE’s partners at Starting Point work closely with preschool providers throughout Cleveland to help them improve their quality.
What is high-quality preschool?
When we talk about high-quality preschool, we mean preschools that have earned a gold or silver rating in Ohio’s Step Up To Quality rating system. When PRE4CLE began in 2014, only 24% of Cleveland’s kids were enrolled in a high-quality preschool setting.
Step Up To Quality is a three-tiered rating system implemented by the State of Ohio. It helps parents understand the level of quality in preschool programs. It’s designed to help parents compare different programs by using the same set of standards and helps preschool providers improve and communicate their quality to parents.
High-quality programs offer:
environments
that are fun, welcoming, safe, and caring
staff & teachers
who are well-trained and professional
research-based curriculum
with lesson plans for each day’s activities
educational activities
to prepare your child for kindergarten
creative & imaginative play
to inspire a lifelong love of learning
feedback
about your child’s learning and progress
Kindergarten Readiness in Cleveland
Kids who enter kindergarten ready to succeed are more likely to meet third grade reading benchmarks, graduate high school, pursue a college degree or career training program, have a successful career, and earn more in their lifetime. The graphs below show that as more Cleveland kids attended high-quality preschool, more children were ready for school when they entered kindergarten.
Our community’s gold standard for preschool: Cuyahoga County’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program
Many children who attend kindergarten in CMSD attended a preschool program that was part of Cuyahoga County’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten program (UPK). All UPK programs are high-quality and receive resources that make them the gold standard for preschool in our community. Children who attend UPK programs consistently show high levels of kindergarten readiness. In the 2021 sample of Cleveland kindergarteners who attended a UPK program for preschool, 61% scored in the approaching and demonstrating bands of the KRA, and 38% were on track in language and literacy. During the 2024-25 school year, 1,750 Cleveland kids attended preschool in UPK classrooms.
You'll notice that we do not have data by preschool type after 2022. This is due to a change in the way data can be reported to our evaluation team by the county and state. We are working with all parties to restore this data access and will update these charts with retroactive data when we receive it.
We're also noticing some surprising trends, including a large increase in overall readiness in the Fall of 2025 and are communicating with partners to better understand what might have caused it.
Cleveland’s kindergarteners who attended high-quality preschool demonstrate higher levels of kindergarten readiness.
Cleveland’s kindergarteners who attended high-quality preschool are more likely to be on track in language and literacy.
KRA Analyses are created by our partners at the Center on Poverty and Community Development using their CHILD Data System.
NOTE: This analysis focuses on children who attended preschool sites in the City of Cleveland and attended CMSD for kindergarten. These children were given the KRA upon their entry to kindergarten in the fall. Children who attended at least one full school year at a PRE4CLE Provider Preschool are defined as those who attended at least one day for eight or more months. KRA data provided by CMSD. Preschool rating data provided by Starting Point.
State of Preschool in Cleveland
The fragile early childhood education system has been pushed to its limit, yet the dedicated preschool providers in our community have continued to prioritize quality for Cleveland’s kids and families.
Enrollment in High-Quality Preschool approaches pre-pandemic levels.
Although the number of children enrolled in high-quality preschool consistently hovers near pre-pandemic levels, only 60% of available high-quality preschool seats are filled, on average–far below the 85% industry benchmark that most high-quality programs met before 2020. Furthermore, enrollment is inconsistent across the city, with some programs facing long waiting lists while others are chronically under-enrolled.
Enrollment levels in many Cleveland neighborhoods show promising gains.
More than three quarters of children enrolled in preschool are in high-quality programs.
50% of Cleveland’s 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in high-quality-rated programs, and enrollment rates in high-quality-rated programs exceed those in lower-quality and unrated programs. In fact, families who choose to enroll their children in preschool overwhelmingly select high-quality programs.
There are currently 228 high-quality preschool providers in the City of Cleveland.
63%
of center-based providers are high-quality
32%
of home-based providers are high-quality
There are three times as many high-quality preschool programs than when PRE4CLE began.
Even as progress continues, challenges are becoming more pronounced. Recent federal and state policy changes, combined with rising costs, are increasing financial strain and uncertainty for providers and testing the stability of the early childhood system.
Capacity, enrollment, and preschool provider rating data powered by Starting Point.
NOTE: Population data based on the US Census Bureau, Census 2020 and 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates.
All data presented in this Snapshot reflect progress as of June 2025.
Thank You
These incredible results would also not be possible without our partners at Starting Point, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and Cuyahoga County Office of Early Childhood—Invest in Children who have supported preschool providers across the city to earn their Step Up To Quality ratings and continue to increase their quality. We are so grateful for their continued partnership and dedication to Cleveland’s young children.
Data for this Snapshot were gathered from several sources, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for providing their time and expertise. In particular, we thank Starting Point and Case Western Reserve University, through the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, which worked with PRE4CLE to collect and analyze our community’s preschool data. And lastly, we thank the preschool providers for willingly sharing their data with Starting Point.
