Full-day kindergarten and long-term health prospects of low-income and minority children: a commentary.

& 2014 Publ Since its beginning 40 years ago, the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) has recognized that children don’t come in pieces and has pursued a mission to ensure all children a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. So, I am very encouraged to see the Community Guide Systematic Review Team apply the high evidentiary standard of its Community Guide systematic review process to assess the impact of fullday kindergarten. The review assessed its impact, in comparison to half-day or alternate-day full-day kinder­ garten, on educational achievement, which may help predict longer-term educational attainment and longterm education-related health outcomes. The conclusion that there is strong evidence full-day kindergarten significantly improves reading and mathe­ matics achievement, which are recognized predictors of educational attainment and education-related health outcomes, should spark action by all of us across disciplines and areas affecting children seeking to pro­ mote long-term gains for children’s health and well­ being. The likelihood that these positive impacts in health outcomes can advance health equity if targeted in lowincome and minority communities makes action even more urgent. The research review is especially timely given current national attention to the need for greater investments in a continuum of quality early childhood development and learning that begins with voluntary home visiting pro­ grams and includes Early Head Start, Head Start, child care, pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten at one end, and at the other end, a goal of college and career readiness that will contribute not only to individual success but to our nation’s economic success as well. Urgent, persistent action is needed now. There is much to build on.