New York City’s universal prekindergarten (pre-K) program, which increased full-day enrollment from 19,000 to almost 70,000 children, is ambitious in both scale and implementation speed. We provide new evidence on the distribution of pre-K quality in New York City by student race/ethnicity, and investigate the extent to which observed differences are associated with the spatial distribution of higher quality providers. Relative to other jurisdictions, we find the average quality of public pre-K providers is high. However, we identify large disparities in the average quality of providers experienced by Black and White students, which is partially explained by differential proximity to higher quality providers. Taken together, current racial disparities in the quality of pre-K providers may limit the program’s ability to reduce racial achievement gaps.

纽约市的全民学前班 (pre-K) 计划将全日制儿童的入学人数从 19,000 名增加到近 70,000 名，无论是在规模还是实施速度上都雄心勃勃。我们提供了关于纽约市按学生种族/族裔划分的学前班质量分布的新证据，并调查了观察到的差异与更高质量提供者的空间分布相关的程度。相对于其他司法管辖区，我们发现公共学前教育提供者的平均质量很高。然而，我们发现黑人和白人学生所体验的提供者的平均质量存在巨大差异，部分原因是与更高质量提供者的接近程度不同。综合起来，