DFER board member Sara Mead makes the case for linking the pre-K and K-12 ed reform efforts more seamlessly in latest The American Prospect. She raises a lot of great points.
Where I live, the biggest problem with pre-K seems to be the extremely uneven quality (I'm being charitable) of the programs and the often inability to tell what connection exists, if any, to the schools where these adorable little kids will be enrolled once they enter Kingergarten.
So why don't we start pushing charter schools (and the tremendous flexibility chartering allows) to take on the role of creating the kinds of "seamless" pre-K through third grade programs that Mead is talking about? That would seem to address the "quality" problem, especially if a charter had to show that some good was coming from the effort in order to remain open.
It would seem you could create some great charter schools that would take kids at age 3 or 4 and add sequentially to their early development. In this case, the pre-K wouldn't be treated like the unconnected step-child of the elementary school, as is often the case in NYC.