EditorialNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, greet students arriving for the first day of in-person school at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Elmhurst, Queens on Sept. 21, 2020. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, greet students arriving for the first day of in-person school at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Elmhurst, Queens on Sept. 21, 2020. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialRenata Santizo, right, with her pre-K classmates at James Shields Elementary School in Chicago on Sept. 13, 2022. At Shields, reminders about mask wearing are now woven into orientation. (Michelle Litvin/The New York Times)
EditorialMelissa Ruiz with her children Gabriel, 3, left, and Milani, 4, at a Head Start center in Perth Amboy, N.J., where there are mandatory masking rules for teachers and children as young as 2, on Sept. 1, 2022. (Bryan Anselm/The New York Times)
EditorialPresident Joe Biden, right, visits Public School 111 Jacob Blackwell, serving grades Pre-K through 8, to discuss community violence intervention programs with local leaders in Queens on Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (Pete Marovich/The New York Times)
EditorialPascall Jean-Jacques, a pre-K teacher at the Sunnyside Community Program in Queens, and a student practicing counting on Feb. 24, 2021. Of the family policies Democrats are considering, universal pre-K was most popular with experts. (James Estrin/The New York Times)
EditorialMayor Bill de Blasio greets a youth arriving for his first day of in-person classes at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens, Sept. 21, 2020. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialMayor Bill de Blasio welcomes Pedro Garcia, 4, as he arrives for the first day of classes at the Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens on Sept. 21, 2020. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialMayor Bill de Blasio wearing a face mask, greets a student at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, as some students return to classrooms in the wake of the coronavirus. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialMayor Bill de Blasio wearing a face mask, greets a student at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, as some students return to classrooms in the wake of the coronavirus. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialHyacinth Hall, a pre-K teacher at Public School 9, in New York, hangs signs in a classroom, on Sept. 16, 2020. (James Estrin/The New York Times)
EditorialImelda Santos, center, checks her daughter in for her first day of school at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
EditorialRomeo Lopez Sanchez, 7, waiting for the school bus in the Bronx with Narcisa Sanchez, his aunt, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)
EditorialThe principal of the Earth School in Manhattan, Claudia de Luna Castro, takes the temperature of a student, Hana Pralica, on the first day of in-person classes in the city on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020. (Amr Alfiky/The New York Times)