The Wall Street Journal reports, as some local news outlets have, that New York City parents are upset that Bill de Blasio’s free-preschool initiative is making it harder to find spots in free preschools that only run half a day. The Journal:

Free, full-day prekindergarten was one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first big pushes when he took office. Now, some parents are pushing back on the full-day part.
Brooklyn musician Hugh Wilson has a daughter who attends half-days at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Preschool in Bay Ridge. He was among the parents distressed to learn last month that the center didn’t get its city contract renewed to offer half-day seats in the fall.
An education department official said providers would be able to apply at the end of the month to host half-day spots, but Mr. Wilson and other parents said they feel left in the lurch.
“As parents, we want the most input into our kids’ development,” said Mr. Wilson, who tailors his work schedule to be home as much as possible with his children. . . .
Public half-day options have declined since the 2013-14 school year, when 26,400 children were enrolled, according to the Department of Education. As of November, the city provided 5,000 half-day seats in district schools and 7,600 in community-based centers.
For the coming fall, all district seats will be full-day, and community centers with expiring contracts must wait to see if their half-day seats will be renewed.
Some parents find the full-day pre-K schedule of six hours and 20 minutes—nearly 32 hours a week—to be exhausting for 4-year-olds. They say it leaves too little time for such childhood essentials as playing with brothers and sisters, visiting the library, baking cookies and reading in a parent’s lap.
The mayor’s office stands by its focus on full-day pre-K as its priority for boosting academic achievement and readying children for elementary school. Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said the city is waiting to see the demand for full-day seats this spring before offering half-day slots.
“We anticipate continuing a modest half-day program, but we urge all parents to first consider a strong full-day program,” Mr. Norvell said.

There are shades of the debate between liberals in favor of President Obama’s plan to increase the child-care tax credit and the (limited number of) conservatives who argue for increasing the more flexible child tax credit instead.

The bottom line seems to be that while free half-day programs aren’t quite going to be a thing of the past, they’re going to be much harder to access than before the De Blasio program. Obviously the government not offering free half-day preschool is no great injustice, but the uniformity demanded here is extreme. This isn’t like Obamacare, where there are legitimate economic arguments as to why the choice of plans subsidized by the federal government has to be limited. The only principle here seems that liberals are convinced pre-K is so good for kids — or that the inequality that might be produced by supporting variation in parenting arrangements is so evil — that parents who want to spend half the weekday with their kids must be discouraged.