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Childhood Obesity: A Growing Problem

September 27, 2011

Obesity, especially beginning in childhood, has become a growing problem in the United States. The rate of childhood obesity has been increasing at a breakneck speed so that currently a third of children are obese (16.4 percent) or overweight (18.2 percent), according to a recent report from the Trust for America’s Health. Childhood obesity is linked with numerous negative effects that can follow a person throughout their lifetime, including greater risk for other health problems such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Given the risk of these negative outcomes, early intervention is seen as paramount by many. With that in mind, President Obama made a proclamation on August 31^st, declaring September to be National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. To that end, the federal government’s Let’s Move! initiative encourages children and families to make healthier choices regarding exercise and meals. But as President Obama noted in proclamation, “Everyone has a role to play in preventing and reversing the tide of childhood obesity.” This does not exclude preschool programs and, indeed, in the past research has found that a preschool program’s choices of daily activities and menu selection could play a role in reducing childhood obesity. For more on the role of preschool in promoting healthy lifestyles, stay tuned for NIEER’s upcoming brief on health policies in pre-K.

- Jen Fitzgerald, Public Information Officer, NIEER

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All in the Family: Engaging Families in Children’s Early Learning

September 26, 2011

Ask any parent, teacher, or researcher, and they will tell you the same thing—education starts, and extends, well beyond the walls of the classroom. Parents are children’s first teachers, and families play a crucial role in education, especially for the youngest learners. Noting the importance of this, the week of September 26-30 is being celebrated as Head Start Family Engagement Week.

Since its beginning, the federal Head Start program has made community and family engagement a key piece of its efforts to prepare at-risk children for school. Of course, other early childhood educators also emphasize engaging parents. NAEYC and Pre-K Now collaborated on the paper Family Engagement, Diverse Families, and Early Childhood Education Programs: An Integrated Review of the Literature, which provides guidance on family engagement based on a review of a range of literature. They recommend that early learning programs:

Integrate Culture and Community: Utilize role models of diverse backgrounds; translate materials in to the native languages of participating families; provide an interpreter; interact with families and children within communities, outside of the classroom environment.
Provide a Welcoming Environment: have staff available at the entrance to guide families; post clear signs; encourage parents to provide feedback through a variety of avenues.
Strive for Program-Family Partnerships: include families in decision-making regarding both their individual child and the program; provide resources to be used at home that connect with classroom activities.
Make a Commitment to Outreach: when possible, make home visits so teachers can learn from families; provide education activities that families can do at home.
Provide Family Resources and Referrals: provide preventative health and family services, including transportation and child care; provide opportunities for families in parenting and adult education classes.
Set and Reinforce Program Standards: emphasize outreach; provide ongoing professional development to expand culturally-sensitive, evidence-based family engagement practices.

During the 2009-2010 school year, NIEER collected data on family engagement policies in state-funded pre-K programs. The table below presents a list of family engagement activities and the number of programs that require them.

Table 1: Family Engagement Activities in State-Funded Pre-K Programs, 2009-2010

Family Engagement Activities	Number of Programs	Percent of Programs
Participating/volunteering in classroom or school events	9	17%
Parent/family shared decision making and governance, parent advisory committee	8	15%
Program orientation	8	15%
Parent/family workshops	6	11%
Family literacy activities	5	9%
As per federal Head Start regulations	5	9%
Newsletters	4	7%
Parent/family education classes	4	7%
Parent/family participation in determining activities/events	4	7%
Specific activities are locally determined	26	48%
Other activities, beyond answer choices above	13	24%
Family engagement activities not required by state policy	9	17%

* Note: Most programs require multiple family engagement activities; therefore the percentages do not total 100 percent.

Of the 54 programs profiled in the 2010 Yearbook, the most popular answer was “locally determined,” indicating that there is a great deal of variation in family engagement policy. Allowing local providers to determine their own family engagement activities allows for customization based on local needs, but there may be great inequality in the level of engagement from site to site. For more information on family engagement policies in state pre-K programs, see this blog post with data from the 2009 Yearbook.

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

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The Empty Space on the Carpet: Absenteeism in the Early Years

September 19, 2011

While the Perfect Attendance award may be a coveted prize for some, young students are missing an alarming number of school days. According to the national nonprofit Attendance Works, about 1 in 10 kindergarteners and first-graders are chronically absent—that is, missing 18 or more days of the school year, or about 10 percent of class days. Most research on attendance does not start until kindergarten, but a new analysis in Chicago makes clear the issue persists even earlier. During the 2009-2010 school year, 62 percent of preschoolers in the city’s state-funded Preschool for All program were chronically absent. In more than a quarter of program settings, the rate of chronic absenteeism reached 80 percent. From preschool to grade 3, 15 percent of all students missed 18 days or more of school. Attendance problems were especially seen at schools in low-income areas.

Absenteeism is a serious obstacle to getting the most out of school, even starting in early elementary school. Chronic absenteeism in kindergarten and first grade is linked with a decline in test scores and can cancel out a degree of school readiness. As one principal noted in the Catalyst Chicago article, “We have an excellent, excellent Head Start teacher, but she worries she’s not as effective because the students simply aren’t there.” A study by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) also found that children who were chronically absent in kindergarten were likely to continue this pattern in first grade, though the study did not address preschool attendance. If half the battle is showing up, these young students are not making the cut.

So why are so many young learners not making it to circle time?

The Preschool for All coordinator for Chicago Public Schools cites the lack of support staff—having only two social workers for over 400 classrooms leaves teachers in the lurch in fighting the absentee battle. Beyond just Chicago, parents may think consistent attendance isn’t important until “real” school starts in first grade.

Part-day programs may also play a role—parents with inflexible schedules need to arrange alternate child care after the school day ends, as well as transportation to a second site. This hassle may be enough to just forego the pre-K classroom for the whole day if another setting is easier. As shown in Table 1, in the 2009-2010 school year, only 12 of the 54 state-funded programs profiled in NIEER’s Yearbook required all children to have full- or school-day schedules (minimum of 5.5 hours per day). Many other programs allow for local flexibility or may combine two part-time slots to create a full day, but these strategies may still leave parents without the opportunity for full-day classes for their preschool-age children.

Table 1: State-Funded Programs Requiring School- or Full-Day Schedules, 2009-2010

State	Hours of operation per day
Alabama	Full day, 6.5 hours/day
Arkansas	Full day, 7 hours/day
Georgia	Full day, 6.5 instructional hours/day
Louisiana 8(g)	School day, 6 instructional hours/day
Louisiana LA4	Full day, 10 hours/day; School day, 6 hours/day
Louisiana NSECD	Full day, 10 hours/day
New Jersey Abbott	School day, 6 hours/day
North Carolina	School day, 6-6.5 hours/day
Rhode Island	Full day, 6 hours/day
South Carolina CDEPP	Full day, 6.5 hours/day
Tennessee	Full day, 5.5 hours/day
District of Columbia PEEP	School day, 6.5 hours/day

Some state-funded programs provided extended-day services using program funding, though others require that it be paid for out of a separate funding source. These wrap-around services may be limited to children whose families receive child care subsidies or meet other requirements set by a state human services department, leaving working poor or middle-income families without extended-day services. As Table 2 shows, only 47.3 percent of children in Head Start programs in 2009-2010 were in a full-day, 5 days-per-week setting; another 4.5 percent attended full-day classrooms but only four days per week.

Table 2: Head Start Enrollment by Schedule, 2009-2010

Enrollment Option	Percentage of Children
Center-based Full Day (5 days per week)	47.3%
Center-based Part Day (5 days per week)	17.9%
Center-based Full Day (4 days per week)	4.5%
Center-based Part Day (4 days per week)	25.8%
Home-based Program	2.5%
Combination Option Program	1.2%
Family Child Care Option	0.2%
Locally Designed Option	0.6%

Note: These figures do not include the Migrant or American Indiana Alaskan Native programs.

Source: 2009-2010 Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) Enrollment Statistics Reports – National Level

The Office of Head Start provides some support in converting part-day slots to full-day slots, though they are still a long way from providing this to all students. In addition to being more convenient for working families, full-day prekindergarten and kindergarten programs have been found to have a greater impact on children’s learning than half-day programs.

How can preschool programs combat the problem of chronic absenteeism? Catalyst Chicago reports that some programs are requiring parents to sign contracts regarding attendance expectations. Some districts may be able to drop students once they have missed a certain number of days, while others use the contracts as a means of communicating expectations, albeit without teeth. Others suggest that improving outreach, as both Chicago and Detroit have done with older grades, and conveying the importance of consistent attendance in pre-K is a less punitive approach. Mandating full-day programs and making it easier to provide extended-day services on site could relieve burdens for parents and improve attendance rates; even requiring a school-day schedule would simplify pick-up for parents with students also in older grades.

State-funded pre-K programs have made tremendous progress in the past decade, increasing enrollment, beefing up standards, and expanding program options. But all of these efforts are undermined if programs cannot get kids into the story corner.

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

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Head Start: Mend It, Don’t End It

August 19, 2011

One of the most neglected questions in the ECE policy arena is “How should we respond to the failure to find lasting effects for Head Start and Early Head Start after investing years and many millions in nationwide randomized trials of those important programs?” I say neglected because there is far less awareness of what the research says than one might expect given the importance of the high-quality research effort that represents our best shot at unbiased estimates of program impacts. For instance, I find that few people even know that Early Head Start’s long-term effects have been evaluated through fifth grade. I addressed this long-simmering question in an article published today in the journal Science. At the outset, I wish to make clear that the evidence does not lead me to the conclusion that we should end these programs, but that they need major reform. Let’s start by quickly reviewing the evidence.

One randomized trial evaluated the impacts of a year of Head Start by following 4,667 children and their families from entry in Head Start through kindergarten and first grade. After one year of Head Start cognitive effects were positive, but fairly small, and the broader the domain the smaller the effects. In follow-up the effects were even smaller. No cognitive or school progress effects were found in kindergarten or first grade, though one might argue that there is a persistent effect on IQ of about 1/10^th of a standard deviation. This would close about 10 percent of the gap between Head Start children and the average child on IQ. No effects were found on any teacher-reported measure of social-emotional development or behavior.

Upward adjustments can be made to the findings because not every child followed the random assignment (some assigned to Head Start did not attend, some assigned to the control group found their way into Head Start). Yet even after such adjustments, follow-up results remain weak. Additional adjustments could be made for participation in other programs, but these would make little difference, particularly at age 3 when high-quality alternatives are scarce.

A randomized trial of Early Head Start with more than 3,000 infants and toddlers produced results similar to those for Head Start even though most children and families participated two or more years. Effects at ages 2 and 3 were quite small for cognition and social-emotional measures including aggression. By age 5 no effects were found for cognition and only one small socio-emotional effect was found. In the grade 5 follow-up no effects were found on any of 49 measures and the estimated effects were near zero for both cognitive and social-emotional development.

For some in the early childhood field the reaction to these long-term findings has been denial. One claim is that bad public schools offset Head Start’s positive effects. The national Head Start study finds, to the contrary, that gains in literacy and math accelerate for both Head Start and control groups after they enter kindergarten. Any wash-out in Head Start effects from the public schools occurs because control children quickly make up the small advantage from attending Head Start. Others claim that non-experimental studies consistently find long-term effects despite a lack of short-term gains in achievement. However, the non-experimental studies are not really consistent among one another in either their short- or long-term patterns of effects. Their positive long-term results likely result from chance variation and methodological failings rather than real effects. If effects are not evident at fifth grade, they won’t be later.

Once we accept these disappointing findings, why not just end the programs as Joe Klein recently argued in Time magazine? I offer two reasons. First, America cannot afford to let so many children fail academically and socially because they are poorly prepared. Second, some other preschool programs have succeeded to a much greater extent, and Head Start can be reshaped to be similarly effective.

Table 1 compares the initial impacts of Head Start and some other large-scale programs. Pre-K programs with above average standards and funding are found to produce larger effects than Head Start in rigorous studies including a recent randomized trial. The Chicago Child Parent Centers, which are similar in key respects to the state pre-K programs in Table 1, have been found to produce effects on achievement and social development into adulthood as well. Reshaping Head Start to more closely resemble these programs would enhance its effectiveness. A quantitative summary of research on early educational intervention over the past 50 years adds weight to this argument as the Head Start and Early Head Start comprehensive services approach is associated with weaker effects, possibly because it reduces the educational focus.

Table 1. Achievement Gains from Pre-K

My prescription for improving Head Start includes increasing the percentage of funds spent inside the classroom, building a stronger connection to public education, and eliminating much federal oversight and related paper work. Early Head Start needs the same freedom from regulation, but should adopt home-based models that have a strong evidence base (Olds’ Nurse Family Partnership) as well as strengthen center-based options. Give programs a set amount of money, audit the books, and assess teaching and learning. Teaching should be highly intentional and include direct instruction one-on-one and in small groups. A new continuous improvement process should be put in place for learning and teaching. The Obama administration’s plans for re-competition of low-performing Head Start agencies should be implemented as soon as possible based on both measures of teaching and broad measures of child progress. Early Head Start should be regarded as an experimental program and subject to large-scale research for at least the next five years.

No doubt, these recommendations will be as controversial as is my longstanding recommendation to increase the amount and quality of education required of Head Start teachers and to increase their compensation accordingly. Head Start teachers should be given the opportunity to return to school with tuition and fees paid by government loans that would be forgiven if they remain in Head Start five years later. The quality and content of the programs they attend should be subject to an approval process to be eligible for these forgivable loans.

Even if they were not controversial, it would be foolhardy to reform Head Start based entirely on my recommendations given the limitations of current knowledge. The evidence is just not that strong given what is at stake. Fortunately, we have a better alternative. Allow Head Start and Early Head Start agencies to innovate, experiment, and find their own way to strong results. A systematic program of research should be launched in which Head Start and Early Head Start agencies propose new approaches to be tested in randomized trials. Experimental programs should be given a blanket waiver from Head Start and Early Head Start performance standards and most nonfinancial reporting requirements as long as they adhere to their own proposed plans (which will be monitored as part of the randomized trial). This systematic program of research would provide much better guidance for early educational intervention than is now available. In relatively short order Head Start and Early Head Start could fulfill their promise.

– Steve Barnett, Director, National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)

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Why I’m Going to Head Start

August 15, 2011

As many of you know, I recently transitioned to a new position as Senior Vice President for Early Learning, Research and Training at Acelero Learning and will no longer be co-director of NIEER. I’ve loved my job at NIEER – the research has been interesting and my colleagues here and elsewhere have been a pleasure and inspiration. I am especially grateful to the Pew Charitable Trusts for the funding that has formed the foundation for NIEER’s work. My reasons for moving on are numerous but I wanted to take this opportunity to explain why I decided to move to Head Start. Acelero Learning is a Head Start grantee that works with delegate agencies in three states to deliver services to children and families. At the Support Center in Harlem we provide the delegates with technical assistance and guidance across all areas of Head Start services.

Why Head Start?

I started my career in early education in Head Start teaching in the Ann Arbor public schools’ Head Start classroom, but even before I knew what career I wanted I worked as a Head Start summer volunteer in high school. I have since served on Head Start boards off and on and I have a firm belief that Head Start can make a significant difference in the lives of young children and their families. It has worked in the past, and it works in certain places now. As a nation, we have to figure out how to make it work everywhere, consistently, while protecting and even expanding the funding required for Head Start to be effective. I am coming home to Head Start because I want to figure out how to produce in every center the lasting impacts on achievement that I know are possible in Head Start. Of course, this means that we in Head Start must face facts and resist the temptation to reject criticism or make excuses.

Why Acelero Learning, Inc.?

Acelero is unique. We are the only for-profit Head Start provider, and outside of the municipal “super” grantees, we are one of the largest Head Start providers in the nation, serving more than 3,800 children ages zero to 5. Our mission helps explain my choice:

The mission of Acelero Learning is to bring a relentless focus on positive child and family outcomes to close the achievement gap and build a better future for children, families, and communities served by the Head Start program.

We are serious about closing the achievement gap and every decision is made in reference to this mission. We use data to drive our decisions as well and have instituted a rigorous continuous improvement system at every level of the program from child to family to classroom to center to delegate to grantee. We measure our objectives in multiple ways at each level. For example, for child progress we implement performance-based assessments and are initiating a system for ensuring reliability of scoring and we select a random sample of children for administration of pre-post assessments of standardized measures. At the classroom level, in addition to CLASS observations in every classroom, we also developed a Teacher Success Rubric for teacher self-evaluation and professional development as well as for annual performance appraisal. To increase our ability to close the achievement gap, we operate all classrooms on a year-round basis – this summer alone, we will provide more than 500,000 hours of summer learning time that children enrolled in our Head Start programs would otherwise not have been able to access. We also offer full-day Head Start and extended-day programs whenever possible.

I’m excited to be involved at Acelero with an entire network of dedicated and remarkably capable colleagues. Together we will show that Head Start is a program of which we can be proud. We are determined to close most of the gap at kindergarten entry and significantly reduce the longer-term achievement gap. I look forward to calling on many of you to help us reach our goal and best wishes to you all.

– Ellen Frede, Senior Vice President for Early Learning, Research and Training, Acelero Learning

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Early Childhood Education Featured in Principal Magazine

August 10, 2011

NIEER co-directors Ellen Frede and Steve Barnett discuss the critical role pre-K plays in closing the achievement gap in the May/June issue of NAESP’s Principal magazine. Drs. Frede and Barnett note that the availability of preschool is a strong predictor of differences in scores in the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a comparison of educational achievement across 65 countries. They also point to research findings that show national achievement test scores rise with the level of public spending on and quality of preschool education. Frede and Barnett maintain that a commitment to an effective, quality preschool program could reduce the achievement gap in the United States by 20 percent. The article from NIEER co-directors also offers principals and other school leaders 10 research-based, practice-tested steps they can take to increase the availability of quality pre-K whether or not they currently offer pre-K in their school.

Also included in the May/June 2011 issue of Principal magazine: Jacqueline Jones, senior adviser for early learning at the U.S. Department of Education, writes about assessment in early childhood education. First Five Years Fund director Harriet Dichter writes about pre-K to grade 3 education in Pennsylvania. University of North Carolina assistant professors Rebecca Shore and Pamela Shue and former principal Marion Bish report on a professional development program in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, designed to prepare elementary principals for preschool.

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Human Capital Development: Why Pre-K Needs to be a Capitol Concern

August 5, 2011

It would be difficult to find a more timely report than Attracting, Developing, and Maintaining Human Capital: A New Model for Economic Development, from the Partnership for America’s Economic Success (a project of the Pew Center on the States). At the same time American families fret over the continued economic doldrums and begin to worry about back-to-school shopping for their kids, the report connects high-quality early education to long-term economic success, pulling from the new book by economist Timothy Bartik.

Bartik’s research makes a strong case for both the short- and long-term benefits of quality early education programs for students, parents, employers, and taxpayers. Short-term, investing public dollars in early education can:

Help attract skilled workers with young children, who prefer areas with high-quality education programs to those with low-quality or inaccessible programs;
Provide peace of mind to local employees, allowing them to be more productive and fully present on the job; and
Increase the demand for highly qualified teachers, who are likely to move to the area as well as spend their earnings locally.

These are essentially the same reasons parents are drawn to areas with good elementary and secondary schools. Businesses want to be in areas rich with highly qualified, happy employees, reflected in years of research showing that public services, including education systems, play more of a role in locating a company than does the business tax rate. Offering peace of mind to parents regarding the arrangements for their young learners has become more important throughout this economic downturn. A 2010 report from the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) found that 51 percent of families with child under age 5 had their child care affected in some way by the recession, even as 57 percent of these families reported child care as an economic necessity. Investing in high-quality early education could not only go beyond the needs of “just” child care but also alleviate the stress families feel regarding both the quality and cost of this care.

Some may ask, “What about the taxpayer?,” echoing the rallying cry of this age of austerity. As noted above, quality early education can improve the environments for both families and businesses, improving local tax revenues and quality of life. Bartik notes that the short- and long-term effects of pre-K include higher test scores. Looking further down the line, quality early learning experiences can reduce special education placements by up to 50 percent through second grade and reduce grade retention by up to 33 percent through eighth grade, both of which significantly reduce the cost of public education. All told, school systems can save up to $3,700 per child over the K-12 years, to say nothing of the crime-related savings of between $2 and $11 per each dollar invested in early education.

Bartik also calls up an interesting statistic in this age of globalization: 60 percent of American workers, including 45 percent of those with a college degree, continue to live and work in the state in which they were raised. Thus, the investments states make during early childhood to prepare children for school and, eventually, work pay off in benefits to taxpayers of those same states later in life. As any real estate agent can attest, parents are attracted to areas with good schools. Bartik’s research find the testing score improvements attributed to pre-K can improve property values by $13 for every dollar invested. Creating attracting education systems can also working parents to stay local, benefitting businesses and local tax bases.

Early childhood education does not need to be limited to state efforts. Bartik’s data indicates that as an economic development strategy, half-day pre-K for all 4-year-olds more than holds its own against business tax incentives. At the state level, pre-K benefits $2.78 for each dollar spent, not far behind the $3.14 benefitted by business incentives. At the national level, however, the $3.79 per dollar benefitted by pre-K far outstrips the $0.65 benefit-cost ratio of business tax incentives. Tax incentives encourage businesses to play musical chairs throughout the country, seeking to cut overhead without necessarily producing more. High-quality early education, though, starts children on an improved educational and social path that benefits workforce quality into the future. It is not difficult to understand, then, the federal government’s current Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge that seeks to develop these early learning programs.

As government at all levels continues its belt-tightening, there are those who claim pre-K is an unaffordable luxury, when in reality it is an astonishingly good investment for both the short- and long-term benefit of the nation. While pre-K has not traditionally been considered in the elementary education system supported by taxpayers, using public funds to provide such programs can actually spur current economic growth while preparing America for a prosperous future. A recent NIEER brief examines current public financing of early learning as well as how the system can be improved. Advocates of publicly-funded pre-K support early learning not only because it is the right thing for children, but also because it can mitigate some of the long-term deficit ills so recently brought to the national light.

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

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Early Education: The Power to Reduce Future Crime Victimization

July 29, 2011

While the goal of high-quality preschool programs is to ensure all young learners are ready to succeed in school, these programs are linked with a number of impressive long-term outcomes. Children who attend high-quality preschool are more likely to graduate from high school and go on to higher education than are their peers who did not attend. They are also less likely to require special education services or repeat a grade in school, both of which contribute to savings for taxpayers. Benefits extend well beyond reducing education costs. The societal and cultural improvement stemming from education reduces future crimes and future victimization. Students who attend these programs are less likely to become teenage parents, become dependent on welfare, and, notably, commit crimes as teenagers or adults. A recent study from the University of Minnesota found that, years later, participants in a high-quality preschool program had lower rates of incarceration and substance abuse than did their peers who were not enrolled. Deterring children from future crime benefits not only those individuals, but all those in society who may have become victims of crimes against person and property. Outcomes like this have triggered a wave of support for pre-K programs from groups ranging from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids to The Boys and Girls Club of America, among other organizations.

However, the long-term benefits of high-quality programs are being sacrificed for short-term savings during this economic downturn. As The State of Preschool 2010 found, states have reduced funding for pre-K programs while unemployment and falling wages have placed more children “at-risk” of involvement in delinquency and crime. In the 2009-2010 school year, state funding for these programs nationwide fell by nearly $30 million from the previous school year to about $5.4 billion, marking the first drop in total spending since NIEER began tracking. Spending per-child adjusted for inflation also has fallen by about $700 over the decade so that recent cuts add to a long-term unfavorable trend. Nationwide, at least 23 states fail to spend enough per child in their programs to meet the 10 quality benchmarks set by NIEER; another 10 state governments provide no funding at all for pre-K.

Trends have been better for availability of pre-K than for funding, but not what one might expect given the benefits. While access to state-funded preschool has increased over the last decade (see Figure 1 for details), we’ve seen slow growth in the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled as well as a complete stagnation in 3-year-old enrollment in recent years. And, there is a wide variation among states in terms of pre-K access – ranging from 1.1 percent of 4-year-olds in Rhode Island to nearly 71 percent of 4-year-olds in Oklahoma. Far too many children are missing out on early learning opportunities that will have positive outcomes throughout their lives, including reducing the likelihood of serious crime, arrest, and incarceration as teenagers or adults.

Figure 1: Access to State-funded Pre-K, 2002 to 2010

Indeed, research indicates that between 35 and 45 percent of American students enter kindergarten not “school ready” — these are the students who can most benefit from the long-term academic and social benefits of pre-K. Some quick number crunching tells us that for an additional $1.7 billion, the nation could enroll all at-risk 4-year-olds in high-quality pre-K; another $5.8 billion would extend that opportunity to all at-risk 3-year-olds nationwide.

While taxpayers may pause at the price tag for state-funded pre-K programs, it is a small fraction of the costs our society pays for failing to start vulnerable children on the right foot. A 2007 study by Robert Lynch finds that high-quality pre-K for just the poorest 25 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds would result in $77 billion in annual decreased crime and child abuse costs by 2050.

Other research has pointed to similarly staggering figures regarding child abuse and neglect. The direct cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States totals more than $33 billion annually. The indirect costs of child abuse, including special education, mental health care, juvenile delinquency, lost productivity, and adult criminality, increase this total to more than $103 billion annually. While taxpayers might feel burdened by a $1.7 billion investment in at-risk 4-year-olds, this number seems insignificant compared to the $103 billion they will eventually spend on the results of lower education standards and the continued cycle of crime and abuse.

Likewise, reducing the number of both perpetrators and victims of crime is an important goal in American society. The criminal justice system, including incarceration, costs billions of dollars each year, to say nothing of the loss of life, property, and security experienced by too many victims each year. A report by Mission: Readiness reveals that criminal convictions contribute to the fact that 75 percent of America’s young adults are ineligible for military service. And, as recently noted by the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC), children are more likely than adults to be exposed to violence and crime, placing them directly in a vicious cycle with often disastrous results. As Mai said in a recent blog at The Crime Report, “Without the proper support to cope with their experience, young people are more likely to face, and cause, additional crimes in their own community.”

While even the highest quality preschool program cannot completely eradicate crime from our society, early interventions can significantly reduce the problem and better prepare the next generation for more productive, brighter futures. As a society, we have the resources to help young people avoid becoming victims and resist turning to crime. Protecting our children is an investment that cannot start too early.

- Steve Barnett, Co-Director, National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)

- Mai Fernandez, Executive Director, National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC)

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Pre-K Disparities: What You Get Depends on Where You Live

July 20, 2011

When we analyzed the data for The State of Preschool 2010, a disturbing trend that we noticed the previous year continued to appear: during these difficult economic times, disparities among states in providing high-quality preschool education are growing larger. Consequently, children’s access to and quality of experiences in preschool vary drastically depending on where they reside. For instance, a relatively small percentage of children (6 percent) in Alabama have access to a high-quality program (meeting all 10 of NIEER’s quality benchmarks) while their peers to the south in neighboring Florida have a better chance of having access (68 percent) to a lower quality program (meeting only three of 10 benchmarks). Alabama’s neighbors to the west in Mississippi have no state-funded preschool program at all to attend. This problem is not limited to the deep South – patterns like this repeat across the country. And tight state budgets are only exacerbating the problem.

While some states continued to move forward during the recession, others fell further behind, and some have dropped precipitously. Oklahoma remains the only state where almost every child has the opportunity to attend a quality preschool education program at age 4, but other states are at least approaching the goal of offering some state-funded education program to all children. In 10 states, the majority of children attend a public preschool program of some kind (see Table 1). At the other end of the spectrum, 10 states have no regular state preschool education program, although children may receive early learning experiences through Head Start and special education (see Table 2). In six states, fewer than 15 percent of 4-year-old children are enrolled in any public preschool program including Head Start.

Table 1: Top 10 States Serving 4-Year-Olds in State Pre-K

State	Percent of 4-year-olds served
	State Pre-K	State Pre-K and Special Education	State Pre-K, Special Education, and Head Start
Oklahoma*	71	71	86
Florida	68	70	78
West Virginia	55	57	78
Georgia	55	57	63
Vermont	52	61	69
Wisconsin	52	55	63
Texas	47	48	57
New York	45	51	59
Arkansas	41	50	60
Iowa	38	43	51

* All 4-year-old special education children in Oklahoma are in the state pre-K program.

Table 2: No-Program States

State	Percent of 4-year-olds served
	Special Education	Special Education and Head Start
Hawaii	5	15
Idaho	6	15
Indiana	7	15
Mississippi	7	37
Montana	5	22
New Hampshire	7	11
North Dakota	7	24
South Dakota	8	25
Utah	6	13
Wyoming	17	26

Other important disparities across the states include:
• State spending ranged from less than $1 million in Arizona to more than $790 million in both California and Texas. Ten states spent nothing on state pre-K.
• For states with initiatives, state funding per child exceeded $5,000 per child in 13 states, while in six others it fell below $2,500.
• Most states failed to meet NIEER benchmarks for teacher and assistant teacher qualifications. Seven states had programs that met fewer than half of our benchmarks for quality standards. The states failing to meet most benchmarks include three of the four states with the largest number of children — California, Florida, and Texas.
• There are no maximum class sizes or limits on staff-child ratios in Texas, the only state that fails to set either. California and Maine have limits on staff-child ratios but no class size limit. Most other states limit classes to 20 or fewer children with a teacher and an assistant.

3-Year-Olds Losing Ground?

Disparities aren’t limited only to geography but also extend to age – by and large, state preschool programs are for 4-year-olds. Even in states that enroll high percentages of their 4-year-old population, 3-year-olds have little or no access to state-funded preschool education.

Already low, enrollment of 3-year-olds decreased during the 2009-2010 school year, reversing an upward trend since the 2003-2004 school year. State pre-K programs served 170,885 3-year-olds, a decrease of almost 5,000 children from the previous year. Only 4.1 percent of the nation’s 3-year-olds are served in state-funded pre-K, meaning that even small declines in service provision can be dramatic. Thirteen states decreased their enrollment of 3-year-olds while11 states increased.

Illinois, New Jersey, and Vermont are clear leaders in enrollment of 3-year-olds (see Table 3), although no state serves even a quarter of their children in state pre-K at age 3. However, while Illinois is still the leader in serving 3-year-olds, the state actually declined in the percentage of 3-year-olds served from the 2008-2009 school year to the 2009-2010 school year.

Even when accounting for state pre-K, special education, and Head Start enrollment, only Vermont, Illinois, and New Jersey serve more than a quarter of their 3-year-old population. Arkansas is close behind with 24.5 percent of their 3-year-olds served through the state pre-K, special education, and Head Start programs. Interestingly, although it does not have a state-funded pre-K program, Mississippi serves more than a quarter of their 3-year-olds in Head Start and special education, surpassing most states that do have state-funded pre-K with access for 3-year-olds.

Table 3: Top 5 States Serving 3-Year-Olds in State Pre-K

State	Percent of 3-Year-Olds Served
	State Pre-K	State Pre-K and Special Education	State Pre-K, Special Education, and Head Start
Illinois	19	21	29
New Jersey	18	22	28
Vermont	17	25	29
Nebraska	11	13	18
Kentucky*	10	10	20

* All 3-year-old children in Kentucky’s preschool program are special education students who have either a developmental delay or an identified disability.

While we are encouraged by success stories such as Oklahoma’s near universal status with a high-quality program and West Virginia’s move toward a high-quality universal program, we are troubled by the fact that many children are growing up in states with little or no access to preschool education or access to programs of low quality. As the expression goes, states are the laboratories of democracy, but wide disparities in educational opportunities for children bring to mind mad scientists rather than the Curies. We remain concerned as pre-K programs face difficult budget choices that can exacerbate today’s disparities and hope all stakeholders can work together to preserve the future for the youngest learners.

- Jen Fitzgerald, Public Information Officer, NIEER
- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

4 Comments | Access, Head Start programs, Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs, Special Education, State-funded programs | Permalink
Posted by NIEER

And They’re Off!: Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Details Announced

July 7, 2011

Last week, in conference calls with stakeholders and reporters, officials from the Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services (HHS) provided further details on the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program. The Obama administration announced $500 million for the competitive grants in late May, and will accept feedback on the draft guidelines until July 11 before finalizing the regulations.

The competition is guided by three sets of priorities: absolute, competitive preference, and invitational:

• Absolute: These must be addressed in each state’s application.

Early learning and development standards and kindergarten entry assessments
Tiered quality rating and improvement system (QRIS)

• Competitive Preference: These criteria will secure “extra” points for applicants.

Include all early learning and development programs in the tiered QRIS

• Invitational: These are areas of particular concern for the Departments.

Sustained program effects in early elementary grades
Encourage private sector support through public/private partnerships

The program will rely on four selection criteria:

• Building successful state systems that align a variety of programs (Head Start, child care, state-funded pre-K, etc.).
• High-quality standards and comprehensive assessments focused on a broad range of domains to enter kindergarten ready to succeed. This includes engaging and supporting families and encouraging healthy development across domains.
• Developing high-quality, accountable programs using a robust tiered QRIS. This necessitates common statewide tiered program standards, promoting participation in QRIS across sectors, implementing rating and monitoring, and validating effectiveness of the QRIS.
• Developing and retaining an effective, high-quality workforce through improving knowledge, competencies, and credentials across the early childhood workforce. States should also work with the higher education community to engage in this process.

Grant caps were developed by ranking each state based on its share of the national population of children birth to age 5 from low-income families. Recognizing that rural communities have unique needs, the Departments may “exercise discretion” in ensuring states with large rural communities are well-represented.

Category	Budget Cap	States
Category 1	Up to $100M	California, Florida, New York, Texas
Category 2	Up to $70M	Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania
Category 3	Up to $60M	Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
Category 4	Up to $50M	Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming

After reviewing the full text released by ED and HHS, a few trends are clear throughout the draft guidelines:

• There is a clear emphasis on collaboration across sectors and settings. The grant ultimately seeks to help states remove various early learning programs from their separate silos and create a coherent statewide system. The Departments provide a comprehensive list of program settings to be involved, including state-funded pre-K programs, Early Head Start and Head Start programs, and programs funded by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and/or the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).
• States are expected to use RTT-ELC funds to supplement (and not supplant) state funding for these programs, as well as leverage existing resources to create stable funding both during and after the grant period. Particular attention is drawn to the quality set-asides in CCDF. Secretaries Duncan and Sebelius had earlier emphasized the potential of utilizing funding from CCDF, Early Head Start and Head Start programs, IDEA, and Title I. The feds are so eager for states to consider leveraging CCDF funds for early learning initiatives that they may submit revisions to their CCDF plans (due August 1) to align with their RTT-ELC applications.
• In this same open letter, governors were encouraged to utilize existing resources, both in terms of building on existing programs as well as working with organizations and agencies in their states already in the field. In particular, they singled out existing State Advisory Councils on Early Childhood Education and Care (SACs). In fact, having an operational SAC is an eligibility requirement of the grant, though how much participation will be required of SACs is not explicated.
• The Departments call for the development of a high-quality workforce through improving knowledge, competencies, and credentials. While the regulations call for collaboration between state programs and higher education institutions to improve credentialing, there are no clear guidelines as to what makes a “good” credential or well-qualified teacher. Policymakers must ensure that the goal of increasing the number of credential recipients is not at the expense of maintain and improving the credential quality.
• The regulations call for increasing access to high-quality programs for high-need children. The best way to achieve this is by improving the quality of programs already enrolling children, rather than creating additional programs that cannot maintain high quality. In many states, the early childhood services offered are not of the highest quality to contribute to long-term growth. To expand the reach of these programs would be counterproductive.

Draft guidelines are available for the grant program at www.ed.gov/early-learning. Comments will be accepted through 5 PM (EDT) on July 11. The final guidelines will be published in mid-August, and states must submit applications by mid-October. The grant period will be from December 2011 to December 2015.

Rundown of Organization Responses

There has been no shortage of analysis and commentary in the early learning blogosphere since the May announcement of the funds. Below are links to some helpful recommendations and suggestions from organizations regarding the Challenge. Please note that most of these documents were assembled before guidelines were further specified and so may only briefly touch on issues that are now paramount to applications.

• The Huffington Post’s Education section gets reaction to the draft guidelines, including some comments from NIEER’s co-director, Steve Barnett.
• New America Foundation provides an archive of their Early Ed Watch blog’s coverage of RTT-ELC.
• Sara Mead at Education Week has voiced several concerns about the program, including peer review, the lack of clear role for foundations, and the vague goals initially offered, starting with the official announcement.
• The National Journal’s Expert Blog on Education offers a veritable pu pu platter of recommendations and cautions.
• CLASP offers research and resources directed towards each area highlighted in the ELC goals.
• Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund put RTT-ELC in context.
• The First Five Years Fund’s The Starting Point blog provides strategies for early brainstorming on this short timeline.