In this compelling documentary, the film asks the provocative question of whether the American convention of starting public school in kindergarten is too late.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the inevitable conclusion, after viewing this one-hour argument proclaiming the benefits of quality pre-school experiences, is yes.

Although there are a few arguing against universal pre-school for American children (notably articulated by a spokeswoman for the conservative Goldwater Foundation, mostly because the K-12 public school model, in her opinion, doesn’t have a stellar track record), most of the experts who executive producer John Merrow gives air time to in this work are staunch supporters of making good pre-school available to all.

The program is essentially divided into four parts. One shows a private Montessori nursery school in Manhattan, where–for a yearly tuition of $15,000–the privileged three and four-year-olds are exposed to astronomy, art, music, reading, and chess. Another segment documents what it’s like for children in the impoverished inner city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who attend a federally-funded Head Start program, whose teachers earn, on average, less than half of the Montessori staff’s $38,000 a year, and where the focus is on teaching basic skills, like colors, letters, numbers and shapes.

Much of the middle section of the documentary highlights the ecole maternelle system of France, where the teachers all have master’s degrees in early childhood education (paid for by the French government), and where all children have access to the same curriculum, the same equipment, and perhaps most important, the same standards. And all of it is free for the parents.

As Marian Wright Edelman, speaking admiringly of the French system, says, “In France, the value of children isn’t even discussed. It’s assumed.”

The documentary places France’s system (where the cost of universal pre-school is about $3,300 per child) in sharp contrast to the inequitable patchwork that characterizes America’s offerings, where it’s painfully obvious that the offspring of educated, affluent parents who have access to the best preschool education available start kindergarten with an undeniable advantage over children who live in inner-city poverty, or rural isolation.

And the documentary also focuses on Georgia’s experiment to provide universal pre-school to four-year-olds (at a cost of $4,000 per child, paid for by the state; Head Start spends about $7,000 per child), an endeavor that former governor Zell Miller developed as a keystone of his administration.

It’s hard to watch this and not come away thinking that our system is flawed from the beginning, that given the higher standards and expectations required of our children at ever earlier ages, it’s more than a pity to waste those years between three and five. Anyone who works with elementary school children should make it a point to watch this documentary.#