Access to high-quality early childhood education for low-income children helps establish the foundation for a child's academic success, college, career and life. Nobel Laureate, James Heckman, concluded that investments in high-quality early education yields between 7% and 13% return on investment through improvements in educational, economic, health and social outcomes. Additionally, high-quality education plays a role in closing the academic achievement gap that often exists between low-income children and their more affluent peers. 

This indicator is calculated as a percentage of all Utah elementary schools serving a student population that includes 10 percent or more children experiencing intergenerational poverty and those schools offering high-quality preschool. This indicator is tricky to measure, as it is common practice among Districts to track preschool students separately from K-12 students.  Due to this practice the preschool students served by a school might not be reflected by the data for that school (that school's data would only show the K-12 students).  As such, it should be assumed that all district elementary schools serve preschool.