Quality Early Childhood Programs « Preschool Matters… Today!

The Pre-K Debates: What the Research Says About Teacher Quality

February 10, 2012

The body of research on teacher quality is, if nothing else, a mixed bag, in terms of both quality and approach. Studies of the effects of preschool education levels have employed techniques ranging from simple correlations to complex statistical analyses that seek to account for the complexities of interrelated policies and practices that affect teaching and learning. Given just how complex policy and practice are, it may be that the simple correlations are just as informative for policy purposes, but neither approach is particularly satisfactory. Controlled randomized trials that look at teacher quality might get us farther, but even these may not tell us what we really want to know, and they are few and far between in any case. Little wonder, then, that some studies find that teachers with higher levels of education have stronger effects on children’s learning while others do not. A 2007 NIEER quantitative summary (meta-analysis) of the literature found a modest positive effect of teachers with a bachelor’s degree compared to those with less education. A few studies in that analysis deserve extra attention because they have obvious strengths:

1. The Cost, Quality and Outcomes Study of child care found that higher levels of teacher education and pay were associated with higher quality as measured by structured observations, and children’s cognitive test scores. A reanalysis that controlled for location and center found no differences between teachers with bachelor’s degrees and those with associate’s degrees or high school diplomas. However, the reanalysis fails to take into account that programs basically hire all their teachers under the same budget constraint, that teachers within a center are not independent performers, and that centers like to assign difficult-to-teach kids to better teachers.

2. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study of early care and education has an advantage over most studies because it includes measures of education in the home, thereby more completely modeling the processes that contribute to children’s learning and development. And, it does so over multiple years and not just a few months. Several NICHD studies have found that teacher education contributes to children’s learning and development.

3. Two studies that found no effects of teacher education on children’s learning are a University of Nebraska study of child care centers in four Midwest states and a University of North Carolina study using data from the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) Multi-State Study of Pre-K. The latter involved more than 230 classrooms and 800 children. While both have relatively large samples, nether takes into account teacher assignment, apparently assuming that it is random and they do not measure home learning processes. In the Nebraska study, only about seven teachers out of the hundreds interviewed had salaries above $30,000.

To my mind, the most informative evidence comes from real policy changes such as when the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered high-quality preschool provided to all children in 31 low-income school districts. This “natural experiment” was implemented in a public system wherein most children were served by private providers under contract to the districts. Teachers lacking the necessary credentials received scholarships to attend more schooling so they could meet the new standard of a bachelor’s degree and early childhood certification. Salaries were raised to public school levels. Teachers received coaching on a regular basis. It comes as no surprise to many involved in this dramatic, albeit painful, transition that the quality of teaching as measured by direct observation was transformed, changing from poor-mediocre to good-excellent.

Of course, we can’t pinpoint teacher qualifications as the sole source of success in New Jersey, and I wouldn’t. Raising qualifications requirements without raising pay from its typically abysmal level is a recipe for disaster. Honestly, would the field really be debating whether preschool teachers needed to be well-educated if wages were not at issue? In addition, coaching and a continuous improvement process are certainly important, but it would be equally misguided to conclude that specialized training and professional development alone could produce quality teaching over the long-run with low wages and poorly educated teachers.

Education research rarely provides a basis for certainty and this is particularly true of studies looking at teacher effectiveness where so many variables matter. If policymakers want greater certainty than the existing evidence provides, different sorts of studies will be needed that are based on real policy changes. In the meantime, leading experts in the field provide us with well-reasoned arguments for and sometimes against requiring higher levels of education for preschool teachers than is currently the case in most classrooms across the nation. Their arguments are well represented in The Pre-K Debates, a new book edited by Ed Zigler and Walter Gilliam at Yale and me. If nothing else, it is always interesting to see university professors argue that their students don’t learn anything useful or that minority students can’t make it in higher education. I’m always happy to put forward Rutgers University as a counterexample.

- Steve Barnett, Director, NIEER

Note: This post is part of a series discussing issues of contention from The Pre-K Debates. For my analysis of universal preschool’s role in economic mobility, see this earlier post in the series.

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Early Education on the International Scene

January 27, 2012

Continuing its focus on the importance of early childhood education, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held its high-level roundtable “Starting Strong: Implementing Policies for High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)” in Oslo, Norway this week. The OECD, a collaborative organization with 34 member nations, provides a forum for governments to share best practices and address common problems in a variety of areas.

Recognizing the impact of high-quality early learning, the OECD has had a special initiative focusing on early childhood and early care (ECEC) since 1996. Their “Starting Strong” initiative has collected data on policies, practices, and success across countries. The roundtable meeting, along with the release of a new publication, “Starting Strong III: A Quality Toolbox for Early Childhood Education and Care,” continued this legacy of international cooperation as nations try to protect crucial early learning investments during difficult financial times.

The roundtable featured invited guests from government, research, and advocacy throughout its member countries to focus on its three goals:

Focus attention on the economic and social importance of investing in high-quality early childhood education and care,
Highlight key policies and practices that can enhance investment in high-quality early childhood education and care in countries, and
Share perspectives and foster dialogue with, and among, stakeholders to promote understanding of the implementation challenges and how to address them.

Steve Barnett, director of NIEER, was a keynote speaker at the roundtable meeting and participated in a panel with other crucial ECEC stakeholders in the international community. Video footage can be found online, with Dr. Barnett’s address beginning at the 25:30 mark, and continuing into the panel at the 57-minute mark. The slides from his Oslo Benefits and Costs of ECEC presentation are available both from NIEER and on the OECD website alongside the video footage.

Norwegian Minister of Education Kristin Halvorsen gave a particularly striking speech (beginning at the 10-minute mark) in which she walked participants through the process of achieving high-quality early childhood education and care programs in Norway. Her argument was rooted in her experience as former Minister of Finance; that is, early childhood education is beneficial not only for the individual child but also for families that are better able to work and the economy that benefits from this. Her presentation slides are also available alongside the video footage of the event.

The complete Starting Strong III report is a 300-plus page tome addressing five policy levers utilized cross-nationally to improve quality in ECEC programs and ensure this crucial investment pays off. An interactive site guides stakeholders through these five levers, and well as the five “action areas” laid out below—this site is an incomparable tool for policymakers both stateside and in the international community.

Policy Levers

Setting out quality goals and regulations

Designing and implementing curriculum and standards

Improving workforce conditions, qualifications and training

Engaging families and communities

Setting out quality goals and regulations

Action Areas

Using research to inform policy and the public

Broadening perspectives through international comparison

Selecting a strategy option

Managing risks: Learning from other countries’ policy experiences

Reflecting on the current state of play

Steve Barnett and Ellen Frede (former co-director of NIEER) contributed to this report and its online materials, and NIEER’s research can be seen in a number of areas through the publication. Research briefs around each policy lever topic address the current body of knowledge on the topic, what is still unknown, and what the policy implications are in the field. NIEER’s contributions can particularly be seen in this brief on data monitoring and accountability.

The OECD hosts a plethora of material on ECEC in member nations. Much of NIEER’s research centers on early education funded by states, which reflect great diversity in resources, access, and quality. These differences are only magnified at the international level, offering a number of ideas that nations may wish to incorporate into their own programs. There is no one “right” model for early care and education; programs must be of high-quality, fit the needs of their community while being culturally responsive, and contribute to lasting gains. Cooperative efforts such as those launched by the OECD provide a crucial opportunity to share knowledge and ensure that all children are provided with quality early learning opportunities, contributing to an improved global economy.

- 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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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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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

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NIEER’s Comments on Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge

July 11, 2011

As NIEER noted last week, officials from the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services released draft guidelines for the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program and will be accepting comments on those guidelines until 5pm EDT today. The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) applauds this early learning initiative and offers the following comments.

- The program calls for a focus on children from birth to age 5. This is an ambitious approach. It should be recognized that current federal and state policies are not adequate for 3- to 5-year-olds; states cannot simply assume this work is done and move on to children under age 3. Neither federal nor state programs for 4-year-olds are sufficiently effective, and 3-year-olds are basically ignored by most states’ early education policies. Yet, simultaneously improving all services for children from birth to age 5 would be a tremendous undertaking and states are hard hit now by the recession. States should be permitted to take on major investments in one sector or program at a time in the context of a broader plan for the entire system. They should not be pressed to produce unrealistic plans for creating seamless high-quality, birth to age 5 systems in a short time with inadequate resources.

- Far too much publicly subsidized and provided early care and education is of such low quality that it fails to significantly enhance child development. Some publicly funded services may even have modest negative impacts on children. The questionable quality of services provided by some public programs for young children makes quality enhancement a more pressing goal than expanding access. Increased enrollment should become a goal only after a program is good enough to substantially enhance learning and development. Infant-toddler care should have a particularly high priority for quality improvement.

- Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) are not a proven approach to improving student learning. A QRIS can incentivize some programs to improve their quality for higher reimbursement rates, but those programs are likely to be the ones with the most resources from the start. Too often, programs that are struggling financially will be unable to raise their quality enough to earn the higher rate without more assistance than most QRIS provide. For various reasons QRIS may provide little more than window dressing with respect to improvements in quality or financial incentives for improvement. Ratings systems can become ineffectual. Increased investment in research is needed to learn from different state experiences as they develop and implement QRIS.

- Assessment is a useful tool in continuous program improvement, but must be used with caution. Assessments alone should not be used to make high-stakes decisions about individual programs or children. The regulations call for increasing understanding among educators as to the uses and limitations of various assessment types—this is paramount to ensuring data is collected and used responsibly to improve programs. Assessments aligned with standards can give useful information on what is and is not working in a program, and should be used to guide trainings, professional development, and technical assistance. Yet, many professionals do not sufficiently understand the strengths or limitations of various assessments and the appropriate purposes for which they may be used. For example, it is common to see screening tests used completely inappropriately. Beyond the particulars of assessment, it is important that early childhood professionals be educated about the difficulties in making causal inferences about programs from assessment data and the kinds of evaluation designs required for valid inferences.

- The development of the required kindergarten entry assessment for all students is an ambitious feat, and applicants may need significant guidance in implementing a strategy that works. Current regulations call for educators to implement assessments, though policymakers must be warned of the potential bias of not using third-party evaluators. A kindergarten entry assessment can also only supply so much information regarding readiness and progress without some prior assessment to use as a “baseline.”

- Developing valid and reliable assessments that can be used for every child entering public kindergarten by the 2014-2015 year is a large task with considerable expense. The federal government provided Race to the Top assessment grants for consortia of states to develop valid assessments for students in the upper grades. A similar grant program for early learning would enable states to work together on an early childhood assessment system that is valid, reliable, and manageable. Such an endeavor is likely to be unaffordable state by state; additionally, the field could benefit from collaborations among states so that information collected is comparable across state lines.

- Workforce development is an important goal in providing high-quality early learning experiences. We support the regulations’ focus on improving educators’ knowledge and competencies, and further professionalizing early childhood education to recruit and retain the best teachers. Collaborating with institutions of higher education is essential to ensuring credential requirements truly reflect the skills and knowledge needed to teach young children. Professional preparation and development efforts should formally integrate with higher education to permit seamless career development. Every child deserves a well-educated lead classroom teacher, and one route to this is a bachelor’s degree with an appropriate specialization. Teachers should be properly trained in curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. Similarly, professionals benefit from supervision by properly trained administrators (e.g., principals, directors, coordinators). Furthermore, NIEER recommends that states address policies for scheduling and staffing patterns requiring adequate time away from children to plan curricula based on assessment and to engage in professional development.

- Judging states based on commitment and investment since 2007 may disadvantage those states whose attempts to develop early learning systems have been slowed by budgetary constraints, especially given the fiscal conditions of these last four years. These states could significantly benefit from additional funding and technical assistance offered through RTT-ELC. Peer reviews should use caution when measuring states against the criteria of prior commitment, as these funds may be exactly the “jump start” some states need to catalyze early learning investment.

NIEER looks forward to the release of the final regulations and to the chance for states to bolster their programs for the youngest learners.

- W. Steven Barnett
Co-Director, NIEER

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Quality Standards: Gains and Losses in Tough Times

June 22, 2011

DIGGING DEEPER: WHAT THE YEARBOOK HAS TO SAY ABOUT QUALITY STANDARDS

(PART 2 OF 3-PART SERIES)

In our annual report of state-funded preschool programs, we examine three key features of each state pre-K initiative: access, quality standards, and resources. Here we provide a big picture look at the one of these features, quality standards, in an effort to analyze the nation’s commitment to offering high-quality preschool experiences at the state level. (For an analysis of pre-K access, see part one of this series.)

One of the most important factors in predicting preschool education’s effectiveness is the educational quality of programs. Quality is linked to effects on children’s development and academic success over time as well as other outcomes that yield economic benefits to society as a whole. States should set minimum standards for each classroom in preschool programs to ensure that all children are served in educationally effective programs and should provide adequate funding to support these standards. While standards alone do not guarantee quality, it is unreasonable to expect preschool education programs to replicate the success of previous programs without having similar high standards. For this reason, The State of Preschool 2010 compares each state program’s standards against a checklist of 10 research-based quality standards benchmarks, each representing a different component of program quality. (A list of the benchmarks and a summary of the supporting research can be found beginning on page 22 here.)

While each benchmark helps define quality, they do not all carry equal weight in predicting program effectiveness nor do they encompass all possible aspects of program quality. Rather, these benchmarks are preconditions for quality that offer evidence of a state’s commitment to provide every child enrolled in state-funded pre-K programs with a high-quality and effective experience. Finally, it is important to consider that the quality benchmarks focus on the policy requirements of the preschool initiative rather than actual practice. Therefore, since these benchmarks represent minimum standards, some classrooms may exceed state-level policy requirements or conversely fail to meet state-level policy if programs do not adhere to requirements. In some states, classrooms failing to meet a benchmark may represent a very small proportion so that the practical difference statewide is minute. However, for those children who miss out on a quality education, the difference may be enormous.

During the 2009-2010 program year, 25 states met seven or more benchmarks, and most states met at least five benchmarks. Four states – Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia – each increased the number of benchmarks met by one, while two states – Nebraska and Ohio – both lost ground on benchmarks by reducing program monitoring due to budget cuts. In addition, new pilot programs in Alaska and Rhode Island each met all 10 benchmarks. For a complete summary of the benchmarks met by each state-funded preschool program during the 2009-2010 school year, see Table 5 of The State of Preschool 2010.

As seen below in Figure 2, the total number of quality standards benchmarks met by state preschool programs has risen and fallen since NIEER began tracking them in the 2001-2002 school year. Notably, in the 2009-2010 school year, the addition of two state-funded prekindergarten initiatives, which each achieved all 10 quality standards benchmarks, influenced the total number of benchmarks upwards. When not accounting for these two programs, four benchmarks decreased, two increased, and four stayed the same. (Note, in addition to the changes in benchmarks explained above, the 2009-2010 school year saw the loss of one of Ohio’s state preschool programs, which accounts for the total number of some benchmarks decreasing.)

Other key findings regarding quality standards in the 2009-2010 school year include:

• Alabama, Alaska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and one Louisiana program (NSECD) met all 10 benchmarks.

• Twelve other states had programs that met nine out of 10 benchmarks – Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana LA4, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey Abbott, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Washington.

• Unlike the large increases seen in previous years, no program this year increased their quality standards benchmarks by more than one.

• Only eight programs continued to meet fewer than half of the 10 benchmarks: California, Texas, and Vermont (both the EEI and Act 62 programs) met four; Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania K4 & SBPK met three; and Ohio met only two benchmarks. However, more than 40 percent of all children enrolled in state-funded pre-K nationwide are in these seven states.

• Two benchmarks are met by fewer than half of all 52 programs: only 16 programs require assistant teachers to have at least a CDA or equivalent credential, and 24 programs require at least one meal per day to be offered. In addition, 27 programs – only slight more than half – require teachers to have a bachelor’s degree.

• Texas and Pennsylvania’s K4 program are the only programs to set no limits on maximum class sizes and staff-child ratios. California and Maine limit staff-child ratios, but not class size. Arizona, Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin 4K set limits for class size and/or staff-child ratio, but these limits are not stringent enough to meet the benchmarks.

Despite mostly forward progress, standards continue to vary a great deal from state to state. For example, children in Georgia and Alabama have access to programs that meet nine and 10 of the NIEER quality standards benchmarks, respectively. But in the neighboring state of Florida, children attend programs that must meet only three benchmarks. For children in states with lower quality programs, they are potentially missing out on the most meaningful early education experiences. In our experience, program standards are much less likely to change year to year than are either access or funding, perhaps due to how they are legislatively established. While this is sometimes a silver lining—most programs did not see standards relaxed in response to the recession—states have also not made big improvements in this area over the years. At a time when all stakeholders are sensitive to the fiscal constraints on programs, it is unlikely to see a significant push in this area in the next few years. For the sake of the more than one million children in state-funded pre-K, we hope we are wrong.

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

3 Comments | Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs, State-funded programs | Permalink
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This Week: Thank a Teacher

May 4, 2011

From elementary school students to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, people across the nation are taking time to thank a teacher throughout the week. That’s because this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, a time to not only celebrate our educators but also to learn more about teaching as a profession.

Years of research have found that teachers play an extremely important role in the preschool classroom. Teacher qualifications are often an indicator of a pre-K program’s quality. Better education and training for teachers can improve the interaction between children and teachers, which in turn benefits children’s learning. The most effective preschool educators have at least a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early childhood. But while this is the norm in kindergarten classrooms, this is not always the case in preschool classrooms.

When we analyzed data from the latest State Preschool Yearbook, we found that 27 of 52 state-funded pre-K initiatives require that pre-K classroom teachers have a bachelor’s degree and 45 require lead teachers to have specialized training in early childhood. Only 16 state-funded programs require assistant teachers to have at least a child development credential or equivalent. While progress has been made in state policies regarding teacher qualifications since we first started analyzing data in 2002, still more can be done. The figure below provides a visual representation of the number of state programs meeting our benchmarks regarding teacher policies over the past eight years.

Since NIEER began tracking teacher qualification requirements, we’ve seen the most improvement in requiring 15 hours of professional development each year for lead teachers as well as more states requiring specialized early childhood training for lead teachers. Progress has been slower in requiring BAs for lead teachers, and fewer than half of all state-funded programs require a CDA for assistant teachers. And, when we moved away from state-funded preschool initiatives and looked at child care, the picture was bleaker. Only 16 of 50 states have any teacher education requirements, and none of those states require a bachelor’s degree.

A newly released policy brief from NIEER and the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, written by Marcy Whitebook and Sharon Ryan, says it’s not just the quantity of teachers’ formal education but also the quality and content of that education. Whitebook and Ryan find a mismatch between the qualifications for the most effective teachers and the supports that these teachers receive to improve upon their work. Indeed, the latest Yearbook shows that only 44 of 52 state-funded pre-K programs have a policy requiring teachers have at least 15 hours of professional development for lead teachers per year; only about half of programs require professional development for assistant teachers. States provide some supports for pre-K teachers to enhance their skills and credentials; notably, almost three quarters of programs provide some scholarships to teachers enrolling in training, though requirements and amounts vary considerably by state. Three programs provide no support to teachers, despite the benefit to students and teachers of keeping up with the latest in the early education field. See the figure below for percents of the 52 state-funded pre-K initiatives offering specific supports for their teachers.

Does the state provide any of the following types of supports to teachers to help them attain credentials or enhance their skills?
Scholarships	73%
Mentors	63%
Other	40%
Loan forgiveness	21%
None	6%

Whitebook and Ryan also note the disconnect between expectations for teachers and compensation policies. When asked if pre-K teachers are required to be paid on the same scale as public school teachers, only 17 of 52 state programs ensured this for all teachers; another 20 programs extended this guarantee only to teachers who classrooms were in public settings. And, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that in 2009, child care workers nationwide had an average salary of $20,940, ranging from only $16,750 in Arkansas to $24,480 in Massachusetts. In a staggering 40 states, the average child care worker salary is below the federal poverty level set by the Department of Health and Human Services for a family of four in 2009.

Research tells us what credentials make for the highest quality early educators, but state policy has a way to go in fully supporting them. State budgets continue to be tight, but states must prioritize a well-educated, well-compensated early childhood workforce to receive all the benefits we know pre-K can yield. As a nation, when it comes to thanking pre-K teachers, we might consider more than a shiny red apple.

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

1 Comment | Child Care, Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs, State-funded programs, Teachers | Permalink
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Latest Yearbook Findings: A Wake-Up Call?

April 26, 2011

When NIEER’s research team analyzed the 2009–2010 data for this year’s State Preschool Yearbook, it was not without some trepidation. News coming from the states has been anything but encouraging and we knew the previous year’s data had not captured the full impact of the recession. In many respects, the 2009-2010 data does present a fuller appreciation of the economic stresses affecting the states. For the first time since we began tracking state pre-K, total spending for the country fell in real (inflation adjusted) dollars. So did per-child spending, which now sits $700 below what states, on average, spent in the 2001–2002 school year.

Beyond the national averages, however, there’s a very mixed picture — some of it good, some bad and some downright ugly. First, the good: Enrollment increased nationally with nearly 1.3 million children attending state-funded preschool education. While the enrollment increase was not large, it does stand as testimony to the value many state leaders grappling with tough economies place on preschool education. Alaska and Rhode Island started programs for the first time – the first new states to provide pre-K in many years.

But there was plenty of bad news. After adjusting for inflation, state funding per child declined in 19 of 40 states with programs. Many of these were relatively large states. Nine state (Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Carolina) cut per-child spending by more than 10 percent. While four states (Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia) improved on NIEER’s Quality Standards Checklist, two states (Ohio and Nebraska) lost ground. And, despite increased enrollment at age 4, enrollment of 3-year-olds decreased across the country with nine states (Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington) cutting enrollment at age 3 by 10 percent or more.

In talking with members of the early education community as we prepared to release the report, it sounded like more bad news is in the offing in states like North Carolina, New York, and Illinois. These are states that have made good progress in state pre-K in recent years – progress which is now being threatened by the proposed cuts and changes in governance. Barbara Bowman, a NIEER scientific advisory board member who runs Chicago’s pre-K program, describes the funding situation in Illinois as “dire” and points out that if the federal stimulus money she used this year to support public pre-K in Chicago isn’t replaced she will have to cut the number of kids they serve next year.

This state of affairs is not lost on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who joined me in Washington to present the yearbook findings. Duncan remarked that educational inequality is the civil rights issue of our time and increased access to quality pre-K and other early learning opportunities is the way to begin addressing disparities.

– Steve Barnett
Co-director, NIEER

4 Comments | Early Childhood, Economics, Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs, Research, State-funded programs, Stimulus Funds | Permalink
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More Great Work from John Merrow

April 8, 2011

This week we saw on PBS Newshour an important installment in John Merrow’s continuing and exemplary pursuit of answers to what ails education in this country. Learning Matters, the nonprofit production company he founded traveled to Chicago where they visited homes with preschool-age children and visited an outstanding Educare program that serves kids from infancy to 5 years old. Along the way, Merrow interviewed Barbara Bowman who runs Chicago’s public pre-K program, once headed up the Erikson Institute, and is a NIEER Scientific Advisory Board. He also interviewed Diana Rauner, president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, and Maria Whelan, president of Illinois Action for Children.

Bowman discusses the enormous costs of school failure and Merrow illustrates by cutting to a scene of young men entering a prison cell block. The cost of keeping them there? — $30,000 per year. Rauner says Educare spends about $19,000 per year per child, pointing out the potential return on that investment. She pointed to research showing that at-risk kids who attended the program for five years (at $95,000 per child) entered kindergarten as ready to learn as their middle-income peers.

There are 90,000 children in Chicago who need high-quality early education but the Educare Program Merrow visited serves only 149. Bowman describes to Merrow the dire budgetary straits in which Chicago’s much larger pre-K program finds itself. It serves 24,000 kids two and a half hours per day. When you add in all the kids in Chicago who attend Head Start and other public pre-K programs, the total comes to 37,000 kids served. In other words, says Merrow, Chicago spends about $5,000 per child on preschool for 40 percent of its neediest kids and nothing on the rest.

This picture could grow worse next year, says Bowman. Chicago used federal stimulus funds for pre-K and if that money isn’t replaced she’ll have to cut the number of children served by public pre-K even more. Merrow asks Whelan about making difficult choices in this economic environment, about spreading less funding over more kids or ignoring the needs of the many in order to serve the few. You will find her answer, and the analogy she uses, interesting. You can view the segment here: http://learningmatters.tv/blog/on-pbs-newshour/closing-the-vocabulary-gap-in-chicago-preschoools/5782/. American’s should not allow themselves to be forced into a “Sophie’s choice” because of all the other things that are given priority–corporate welfare, foreign wars, and tax cuts for the wealthy among them.

Where would Merrow find the money for pre-K? He presents a bold answer in his blog Taking Note. He proposes to eliminate 12^th grade, and then suggests the even more unthinkable—eliminate subsidies for corn production. I take it his point is that people will have to come up with new ideas and fight tough political battles to wrest money for early childhood investments from powerful entrenched interests. Stay tuned for NIEER’s 2010 Preschool Yearbook to be released later this month where we will reveal which states have chosen to support new investments in children despite tough times and which have chosen to disinvest in young children.

Steve Barnett

Co-director, NIEER

1 Comment | Achievement gap, Early Childhood, Early Literacy, Outcomes, Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs | Permalink
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