Equal from the Start: Promoting Educational Opportunity for All Preschool Children – Learning from the French Experience

In 2002, the Foundation began to focus on French priority education policy (known as ZEP policy for zone d’éducation prioritaire). This policy entails the investment of additional resources in schools serving disadvantaged student populations. A kind of affirmative action à la française, ZEP policy aims to “give more to those who have less” within a universal, national education system.

Our objective was to examine how this education policy is applied to pre-kindergarten education in France, and to identify any lessons the French policy might offer for efforts to reform and improve early education in the United States for children at risk of school failure. The French-American Foundation organized an intensive study visit to examine priority education policy in May, 2002, and published a report entitled Equal from the Start: Promoting Educational Opportunity for all Preschool Children: Learning from the French Experience.