ABSTRACT
Since the 1950s, the proportion of preschools that are public has grown, but the share of children enrolled in public preschools has declined steadily—from 38 percent in 1955 to just 20 percent in 1998 (Morigami, 1993, 1999). What has contributed to this movement from public to private preschools? What are the likely outcomes of a move to a system operated by individuals with a profit motive as well as educational objectives? These questions—as crucial to American educators as to those in Japan—are explored in this chapter.
