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Yes, Public Preschool is a Smart Investment

March 22, 2013

Note: This blog post is in response to the question posed by The New York Times in its Room for Debate forum: “Is Public Preschool a Smart Investment?”.

Early education and care programs have two goals — child care so parents can work or go to school and education so children learn and grow optimally. Unfortunately, much of what is called child care in the United States is what others would call “child minding.” Ensuring that children are safe, warm, and fed is not enough to support their healthy development, which also requires well-trained, adequately paid teachers who receive coaching and supervision plus sufficiently teacher-child ratios. This helps ensure caregivers provide children with educational content and play experiences that include language, math and science as well as attending to their social, emotional, and physical development, which are equally important. In a high-quality early childhood education and care setting, children learn language, how letters and books work, and about numbers, shapes, and dimensions. But they also learn how to test a theory, concentrate, self-regulate, develop attention skills, get along with others, and more. The end result is they start kindergarten better prepared to learn and live full lives.

The evidence for pre-K is substantial and far beyond the few studies commonly mentioned, such as the Perry Preschool Program (which skeptics criticize for being old and small). To date, there are summaries of 123 studies in the U.S. and about a third more elsewhere in the world that demonstrate the effectiveness of high-quality pre-K programs. From all the studies out there one concludes that early educational intervention can have substantive short- and long-term effects on cognition and social-emotional development, as well as on school progress, antisocial behavior, earnings, welfare participation, and even crime. A multiplicity of programs across various social and economic contexts, including large public programs, have been shown to be effective. Among the recent evidence are long-term studies from Michigan and the Abbott preschool program in New Jersey. So how can we choose not invest in it when the evidence also shows that for every $1 spent we get far greater returns?

The President’s pre-K proposal would help states provide high-quality pre-K for low- and middle-income families, which is crucial considering that children of lower income groups start kindergarten more than a year behind in language and math than their upper income peers. And this gap is very resistant to later efforts to close it. Recognizing that parents want quality learning experiences for even the youngest children, the President also proposed partnerships between child care and Early Head Start, a program for at-risk children under age 3 with a track record of success. Improving quality in child care for younger children, particularly the most disadvantaged, while providing expanded pre-K to 4-year-olds is too important to be an either/or choice. We can do more for children of all ages and the President proposes to do that, but ensuring that every child has access to quality education at least by age 4 is an attainable goal right now while pursuing that broader agenda. State leaders have figured out that pre-K is a good choice for families and children in their states and politically viable as a bipartisan policy – last year, 39 states offered state-funded pre-K programs, and enrollment – all voluntary – has nearly doubled in a decade. Even cities have started to push for pre-K programs, such as the recent efforts in San Antonio by Mayor Julián Castro. Nevertheless, finances are difficult for many families, cities and states. A little federal help will go a long way toward ensuring that all families, especially low- and middle-income ones, can have access to high-quality education for their preschoolers.

- Milagros Nores, Associate Director of Research, NIEER

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The Perry Preschool Study and Head Start

March 8, 2013

This guest post is an open letter in response to The Wall Street Journal editorial “Head Start for All.”

Your Review & Outlook “Head Start for All” (Feb. 25) makes several incorrect claims about the HighScope Perry Preschool Study. As director of the study, I’d like to set the record straight.

Your review claims that the Perry study and the Abecedarian study are the sole evidence that preschool works. But they are just the best known of a large number of studies finding that preschool works, that is, has its intended effects on children. Along with the city-wide Chicago Child-Parent Centers study, these studies go a big step further by finding strong long-term effects and return on investment.

In the presence of large returns on investment, the initial cost should be a secondary consideration. That said, the Perry Preschool cost per child was well below the $16,000 per child per year or more you said it cost. In current dollars, it cost $11,107 per child per year, about the same as the cost per K-12 student in the U.S. The Perry Preschool program is not that hard to replicate—and have its return on investment widely realized. We simply need to insist on reasonable program standards – qualified teachers using a proven curriculum, partnership with parents, and regular evaluation. Unfortunately, far too many existing preschool programs do not meet these standards.

The disappointing results of the national Head Start Impact Study are hardly a reason to abandon the program when other studies, like the Perry Preschool Study, show its enormous potential. The Head Start Impact Study does suggest a course correction, bringing the resources of Head Start more fully to bear on contributing to the development of young children living in poverty. Such improvements are achievable and, with them, widespread improvements in educational achievement, economic productivity, and reduced costs to taxpayers.

- Larry Schweinhart, President, HighScope Educational Research Foundation

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Reactions to the President’s Pre-K Speech and Proposal

February 15, 2013

The early childhood education (ECE) field is a-twitter with responses following President Obama’s announcement of federal investments in preschool for all during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Many have questions about how administration’s plan will approach preschool education. Will programs truly be of high quality? Will programs strike a balance between academics and play? What about programs for children younger than age 4? NIEER offered recommendations on the key components of a federal plan last week, but the White House plan is still surrounded by many more questions.

Answers to some of those questions may not be found for a while, but more details on the administration’s early education proposal were revealed this week. Early Thursday morning, the White House released a look at the preschool plan with this fact sheet. Later that day, President Obama made pre-K the focal point of a speech given in Decatur, Georgia. One thing that was apparent from the speech is that he has an impressive knowledge of the research and what high-quality really means for early care and education; video of that speech as well as a transcript are now available from the White House. Speaking on the return on investment of preschool education, President Obama said, “If you are looking for a good bang for your educational buck, this is it right here.” While in Decatur, the President also spent some time learning with students in a pre-K classroom.

Following the speech, Dr. Barnett released a statement, in which he noted that “early education can have substantive short- and long-term effects on cognitive and social-emotional development, as well as on school achievement, while reducing inequality, antisocial behavior, and even crime. So how can we choose not invest in it?” As the President did in his speech, it is important to attend to all of the research and not just studies that might support one view or another. This has not always been the case in responding to the proposed plan, particularly with some of the most negative responses.

For example, the Head Start Impact Study has been cited as evidence that pre-K doesn’t work. Yet, that study does not show that Head Start has no positive impacts, much less that high-quality preschool generally isn’t effective. The naysayers fail to acknowledge that Head Start teachers are paid about half what public school teachers earn, which is a serious impediment to hiring and retaining the best teachers. Nor do they mention the more positive research findings on Head Start from other studies or acknowledge that some Head Start centers are more effective than others.

Of course, the right way to address the question of what this proposal might accomplish is to ask what the research as a whole finds (and not just research here in the U.S.). This much is clear: on average there are substantial long-term effects; effects are larger if programs are well-designed to produce high-quality teaching; children from middle-income families benefit also if the programs are of high quality.

There are still plenty more details that will need to be revealed over the coming weeks as this proposal moves forward. For now, we at NIEER are pleased to see the conversation and debate on educating our youngest learners elevated to the national level.

- W. Steven Barnett, Director, NIEER

- Jen Fitzgerald, Public Information Officer, NIEER

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

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Not Just Wishful Thinking

January 10, 2013

Ensuring that all our children are ready to succeed when they enter kindergarten is a tremendous task, made much more difficult in the United States by high levels of poverty and low levels of parental education. One in four preschoolers lives in poverty, nearly half in low-income families. Twenty-seven percent are born to mothers without a high school diploma or GED. Assessments at kindergarten entry show that surprisingly many children from middle-income families are poorly prepared to succeed. There are many public policies that could contribute to reducing this problem, and there is no single solution, but let us consider one that seems obvious and for which there is considerable evidence, public preschool programs.

Public preschool education could be an important part of the solution, but currently it is not given a chance. Ensuring school readiness through preschool education is precluded by low levels of investment and high levels of wishful thinking. Far too many children lack access to preschool education, and it is least available to those who could benefit most. The majority of 3-year-olds in homes where Spanish is the primary language don’t attend any preschool program. Some don’t qualify for publicly funded programs because their parents work long hours to keep them out of poverty. Others live in states that don’t fund any preschool program at all or in neighborhoods that aren’t served. As a nation we spend far more public money on prisons than on preschools. Federal and state governments together spend less on preschool education than Americans spend on pet food.

The latest research on preschool program outcomes to cross my desk is the third grade follow-up of the national randomized trial of Head Start. It is now clear: Head Start produces no perceptible lasting gains in any domain of child development. This does not rule out very small persistent gains, but Head Start is not meeting its goals. Yet, much of the field seems to be in denial, responding that bad public schools erode the effects of Head Start. Somehow they fail to see that even initial gains are quite small and that children in the study made much larger gains in kindergarten and the early grades than they did in Head Start. Other studies confirm that learning gains in kindergarten are much larger than in Head Start. The root of the problem is that Head Start is locked into a program model that fails to focus on intensive education and pays teaching staff abysmally. This model has failed every true experimental test (Early Head Start, the Comprehensive Child Development Program, the Child and Family Resource Centers).

State pre-K programs often are little better than Head Start since they too usually lack the funding and standards of public education for kindergarten. State subsidized child care (as opposed to preschool education) is so poor that it may actually harm child development on average. Clearly, just shifting Head Start to the states is not enough to solve the problem. However, for all the faults of public education, one only has to look at growth curves for learning over time to conclude that if preschool were supported like kindergarten, children would be much better prepared. And, looking at the programs found to produce substantive lasting gains for children in well-controlled studies, the common theme is that they are much more educationally intensive than our current preschool programs. It is time to face facts and change directions.

If the United States is to effectively address the school readiness problem, public preschool programs must provide much more intensive education to many more children. Only public preschool education for all children is likely to achieve this goal. Means-tested programs exclude too many children who need help. The federal government should incentivize states to offer preschool programs that meet a small number of well-defined criteria for quality and set a goal to serve all children by a certain date. Then let states innovate as they have a track record of creating flexible public-private preschool partnerships. The focus of accountability should be on strong teaching and truly substantive gains in broad child development. Head Start should be integrated into public education as a funding stream to enhance the education of young children in poverty so that they start early and receive the best teachers and smallest classes. Once we stop thinking of preschool as charity and start thinking of it as an investment in everyone’s future we might actually do what is necessary to meaningfully improve the education of young children.

- Steve Barnett, Director, NIEER

This entry is cross-posted to The National Journal and is in response to the post “Pre-K for Everyone?” by Fawn Johnson.

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The Importance of Having Data; Or What Would Sherlock Holmes Do?

January 8, 2013

“‘Data! Data! Data!’ he cried impatiently, ‘I cannot make bricks without clay!’”
— “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes isn’t the only one relying on data. As anyone in the education world—researchers, parents, teacher, principals, and students—can tell you, decision-making in education is increasingly based on data that shows us what is and isn’t working. So what happens when we don’t have the data we need? Schools that receive federal and state education funds often have specific data reporting requirements, making centralized data collection and analysis relatively convenient. But early childhood education, fragmented across states, localities, programs, and sectors, presents a challenge to the data wonk.

Sherlock Holmes muses on some data points.

Lisa Guernsey and her team at the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative have been leading a recent charge to improve data collection. Last month, they released their updated Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP), an impressive database of federal data on education spending and enrollment at the district level. For the first time, FEBP sought to provide pre-K spending data at the state and district level, but noted that many state-funded pre-K programs are not necessarily governed by the same district borders as are K-12. Their policy brief accompanying FEBP’s release sums it up:

“Pre-K and kindergarten data at the local level are labyrinthine and disorganized, hampering any ability to craft policies for equitable access and funding. States must collect more complete and comparable data from school districts and CBOs if policymakers and the public are to understand the state of education for young children in their communities and states.”

So how do we improve early education data? Elementary, my dear Watson.

Improve Existing Information Collection

We don’t just need more data, we need more of the right data, presented in a clear and timely way. The U.S. Census Bureau asks about pre-K participation in its American Community Survey. However, this question suffers from several methodological short-comings: it relies on parent reporting of participation (rather than data from the schools) and includes children ages 3 to 4 enrolled in nursery school or preschool during the previous two months, which may then include children who do not remain enrolled for most of the year, while excluding children enrolled earlier or later. Ultimately, as acknowledged by Alex Holt at the New America Foundation, this question “is so convoluted that we consider the data from it to be effectively useless. Even at the federal level, the U.S. government has no idea how many children are enrolled in pre-K.” Likewise, the information collected on prekindergarten enrollment by the National Center for Education Statistics through its schools survey includes only those children served in programs operated in public elementary schools, without differentiating between 3- and 4-year-olds. Across all data sets there is considerable uncertainty regarding the extent to which we can accurately identify all classroom participation regardless of the name attached (child care, special education, state pre-K, local public school, Head Start, private preschool, etc.) and even more uncertainty regarding whether we can identify types of programs. Even separating public and private is difficult because of ambiguities. (For example, many state pre-K programs are operated by private providers, and even Head Start providers are mostly private non-profits.) So, information is widely available to researchers but it may not answer the questions they’re asking.

Develop Comprehensive Data Systems

The Early Childhood Data Collaborative advocates for coordinated longitudinal early childhood data systems, which are state efforts to collect data to track children’s progress from early childhood and beyond. Their 10 fundamentals of data systems seek to improve data collection and allow stakeholders to link information both longitudinally and to other key programs, while ensuring the system is well-managed, secure, and maintains privacy. Their recent brief on those states who addressed longitudinal data systems in their Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) applications highlighted important trends, including filling gaps in current data (including information on the workforce) and collaborating across early childhood education systems and agencies.

The very inclusion of data systems as an optional component of RTT-ELC indicates the need for data has been elevated to a place of important within the federal government and hopefully drives continued collaboration among states to improve their current systems.

Fund Quality Data Collection Efforts

Finally, as a field, we need to continue supporting high-quality research collecting data on policies within early childhood education programs. In a piece at The Huffington Post, Lisa Guernsey writes in support of NIEER’s State Preschool Yearbooks, noting:

“The idea behind the yearbooks, Barnett said, was ‘to create an archived data set that would be consistent across the states.’ By making the information available to all, he explained, reporters and policymakers who wanted data would not have to call all 50 states, ‘and state officials could provide information that was comparable to what was provided by the state next door.’ NIEER … sought to halt the spread of misinformation about which states were offering good pre-K programs and enrolling high numbers of children, and which ones weren’t.”

After the Pew Charitable Trusts ended their 10-year investment in the Yearbooks, NIEER has been seeking for a new funder for what’s become one of the most well-respected, well-cited data sources on American early education. Guernsey refers to the times before the Yearbook as “the dark ages,” and it’s hard to imagine going back to a time without it, without media coverage from CBS and NBC and the support of the U.S. Secretary of Education. We’ve seen tremendous growth in not only the media attention on pre-K, but in state-funded pre-K itself: by the 2010-2011 year, nine more pre-K programs were available than in the 2001-2002 year, and quality standards have increased overall even as the Great Recession has worn away at program funds.

Our annual Yearbook publication is a true labor of love, one we’re proud to produce each year, and we’re overwhelmed by the positive response of the early childhood community in supporting and sharing our work. Yet, even this work only covers one of the major segments of the field. We need good data to make the right decisions for early education and the future of America’s students. Only by supporting, collecting, analyzing, and sharing this information with the field will we be able to live up to this advice from the esteemed Detective Holmes: “No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit, destructive to the logical faculty.”

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

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Happy Holidays to All from NIEER

December 18, 2012

As this year winds down and we gear up for the next, I’d like to take some time to reflect on this past year and its highlights as well as wish you all a very merry holiday season and happy new year. We at NIEER thank you for all of your support and engagement on early childhood education issues.

It’s been a busy year for all of us here at NIEER. In March, NIEER researchers – in conjunction with Lakeshore Learning Materials – released a new preschool assessment, the Early Learning Scale (ELS). The ELS was developed based on extensive review of the research and with input from preschool teachers who piloted the tool. Focusing on the critical domains of Math/Science, Social-Emotional/Social Studies and Language & Literacy, the ELS provides teachers with a manageable and effective tool for assessing children’s progress toward early learning standards and expectations.

In April, we unveiled a new look to our web site, nieer.org, designed to be more user friendly and with new features such as a publication order form. That month we also released the ninth edition of The State of Preschool yearbook series at a press conference featuring U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who joined me to emphasize the importance of improving state early education policies, as can be seen in the picture below. While nationwide total enrollment continued to increase, not all of the news was good, especially when we looked at 10-year trends showing that pre-K education was declining in terms of funding and quality standards. This bleak picture was picked up by the national – as well as state and local – news media, helping to open up a dialogue about publicly funded pre-K across the country. We are now hard at work collecting and cleaning data for the next edition of this important report, even as a lack of future funding puts this project at risk of discontinuation as highlighted by Lisa Guernsey in her article for The Huffington Post.

Barnett Duncan 2011 YB release

Also in April, NIEER’s Associate Director of Research Milagros Nores visited Colombia for the launch of that country’s public-private initiative Primero es lo Primero (First Things First). As we’ve noted in the past, we are continuing to study the effectiveness of Colombian preschools in addition to other long-term studies we are conducting in the states of Arkansas and New Jersey.

I traveled extensively throughout the past year, speaking about the importance of intensity and quality in early childhood programs if the economic benefits of investing in early childhood education are to be realized. Here at home, interest remains high from New York, New York and Washington, D.C. to San Antonio, Texas, where voters approved a modest tax to invest in early education, and points further west. Abroad, interest in increasing investments in the young children often surpasses that at home, taking me from Oslo, Norway and Guatemala City, Guatemala to Seoul, South Korea and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The picture below shows me meeting with Guatemalan Minister of Education Cynthia Del Águila de Sáenz de Tejada and others interested in early education in Guatemala City; other pictures from that trip can be found on NIEER’s Facebook page.

Barnett with de Tejada

In keeping with Rutgers University’s theme of “Jersey Roots, Global Reach,” NIEER also made efforts to work within our own local community, with NIEER Assistant Research Professor Alissa Lange receiving and implementing a grant to conduct a series of math-themed story times for preschoolers at the public library.

This year also saw progress on other fronts as NIEER successfully competed for several new grants, most notably winning a U.S. Department of Education grant to establish the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) along with our partners at the Education Development Center, Inc., and the Council of Chief State School Officers. We are delighted to welcome to the NIEER team Dr. Lori Connors-Tadros, Senior Project Director for CEELO at NIEER. CEELO will provide technical assistance and other supports for state education agencies to improve outcomes for early childhood education programs. Other recent grantors include The Schumann Fund for New Jersey, the Turrell Fund, The Nicholson Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

The NIEER offices will be closed from December 24 until January 2. When we return, we’ll be looking forward to another year of advancing research to improve educational outcomes for young children. And we’ll be looking forward to hearing from all of you – whether you give us a call, speak with us face-to-face at conferences, or visit us virtually on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, or on our blog.

Again, all of us at NIEER wish all of our readers a happy holiday season.

- Steve Barnett, Director, NIEER

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Preschool for Y’All: The Rise of Early Education in the South

November 1, 2012

(PART 1 OF 2-PART SERIES)

As our State of Preschool 2011 report made clear, state-funded pre-K nationwide has fallen victim to tight budgets. As rises in enrollment outstripped funding increases, per-child spending was dragged down. We’ve also seen that disparities in quality, access, and resources have been exacerbated over the last decade, as some states prioritized early education during budget crises while others cut spending. A quick look at regional trends finds one important point: early childhood education is a priority down South.

The South, as defined by the Census Bureau, comprises 16 states* — Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. (These states are further subdivided into three smaller regions, as grouped here.) A quick look at our Access map below, demonstrating the percent of 4-year-olds enrolled in each state’s state-funded pre-K program, shows that some of the highest access states are in the South. In fact, 10 of the top 15 states for 4-year-olds are in this region.

Mississippi is the only state in the South without a state-funded pre-K program. Otherwise, the South has prioritized access to state-funded pre-K, as evidenced by data such as:

All-age pre-K enrollment in this region is more than 700,000 children. This is 54 percent of children enrolled nationwide, though these states account for only one-third of the total U.S. population.
Most states in this region maintain impressively high enrollment levels, including Florida with the highest enrollment percent in the nation for 4-year-olds at 76 percent.
Since the 2001-2002 school year, the percent of 4-year-olds in the Southern region has consistently, and significantly, outpaced the 4-year-old enrollment rate across all 50 states, as can be seen below.

A large proportion of both Southern and national enrollment growth was the implementation of Florida’s Universal Prekindergarten Program in the 2005-2006 year, which enrolled more than 100,000 4-year-olds in its first year alone and has continued growing. Enrollment of 4-year-olds has increased nationwide in the last decade due in part to increased advocacy efforts at the state and national levels as well as a growing body of research proving the effectiveness of pre-K. However, the impact of these efforts can be seen even more clearly in the South, where enrollment has increased by a staggering 23 percentage points during the past decade, compared to only 14 percentage points nationwide.

Most Southern states also excel in terms of our Quality Standards Benchmarks.

Only five states nationwide meet all 10 of these, and three of them are in the South—Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. (One of Louisiana’s three state programs also meets all 10).
Another nine Southern states meet eight or nine benchmarks, an exceptional track record for one region.
However, the South also has two of the states with the lowest quality standards—Florida meets three and Texas meets four, which is particularly problematic considering their extremely high enrollment levels.

(Click on the Google Motion Chart image below to explore longitudinal changes in access, enrollment, and quality standards in the Southern region.)

Funding per child in the South declined in eight states since the 2001-2002 school year, though both Arkansas and Louisiana posted impressive increases in per-child funding in that time. Only six of these states (Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and West Virginia) met NIEER’s estimate for the per-child spending needed to meet all quality standards benchmarks as well as pay pre-K teachers a salary on par with kindergarten teachers.

Preschool has come a long way in the South, even serving as a national model in many ways, and advocates for children must be vigilant to ensure it serves those children who need it. In our national press release for the Yearbook, we expressed concern than political and financial conditions in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas could threaten program progress. (Individual state releases with more information can be found here). Given these threats to programs, it is important to remember this question posted by the Southern Education Foundation in 2010: “This is the South’s challenge and its moment of truth: Do we sustain the one area of public education needed by little children that is successful? Or shall we take steps to reduce or eliminate the best way we have to help little children become ready for success in education for years to come?”

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

- Jim Squires, Senior Research Fellow, NIEER

* The District of Columbia is also included in the Census definition of the South, though their enrollment figures are not included here as it would be inconsistent to compare a city among states. However, the District of Columbia has also shown a substantial commitment to early childhood education and provides publicly-funded pre-K to the majority of its 3- and 4-year-olds in a variety of settings.

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Missed Opportunities: Pre-K Lags for Hispanic Children

April 30, 2012

Hispanic children and families have been hit particularly hard due to recent funding cuts in state-funded pre-K. While the State Preschool Yearbook does not break down data by ethnicity, our data on state efforts combined with other sources paints a troubling picture for Hispanic preschoolers, especially those growing up in a household where English is not the primary language. A survey of Hispanic families shows that Hispanic parents are very likely to enroll their children when voluntary preschool education is available to them, but only 25 percent of Hispanic children at age 3 attend public or private preschool, compared to 43 percent of non-Hispanic children. State pre-K—which serves primarily 4-year-olds—has been important in increasing Hispanic enrollment at age 4, but Hispanic children still lag in access with 64 percent in a public or private program compared to 70 percent for non-Hispanic children.

Twenty-one percent of 3- and 4-year-olds nationwide live in an immigrant family with at least one foreign-born parent. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 6.1 million Hispanic children were living in poverty in 2010, representing 37.3 percent of all poor children. As can be seen in the graph below, the number of Hispanic children living in poverty accelerated sharply during the recession, due in large part to the 11.1 percent unemployment rank seen among Hispanic workers in 2011. The combined impact of being from a low-income family and having limited English proficiency can put these students at a serious risk of school failure, especially if they lack access to a quality preschool program.

Original graphic from the Pew Hispanic Center can be viewed here.

More than half of the nation’s Hispanic population resides in just three states: California, Florida, and Texas. Unfortunately, preschool programs in these states may not give Hispanic students the boost they need. Florida and Texas have high enrollment levels but low quality standards, which means that thousands of children are enrolled in programs that may not meet their needs. They both have per-child spending levels under the national average of $4,151, which further threatens quality. California’s program has grown rapidly due to including the state’s child care programs under the same umbrella, but per-child spending levels and policy standards are low there, as well. While many programs may exceed minimum standards, particularly when public schools are the providers, two aspects of these programs are particularly worrisome—class sizes and funding. Texas limits neither class size nor ratio and Florida has been increasing class size. California does somewhat better since it limits teacher-child ratio to a reasonable level even though it does not limit class size. All three states decreased funding per child in recent years, and in Florida it barely exceeds $2,400 per child, a figure too low to sustain quality under any reasonable definition.

State	4-year-old Enrollment Percent	State Spending Per Child	Quality Standards
California	19%	$4,986	3
Florida	76%	$2,422	3
Texas	52%	$3,761	4

Additionally, there are five other states with Hispanic populations above one million: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, as can be seen from this interactive map from the Pew Hispanic Center. Arizona totally eliminated its state pre-K program in recent years, though First Things First stepped up to provide some services to preschoolers there. Illinois and New Jersey are bright spots ranking among the top 15 in the country for program quality standards and both ranking in the top 3 for enrollment of 3-year-olds. However, both New York and Colorado reduced per child funding when the recession squeezed state finances.

The video below shows the change in enrollment in these states with large Hispanic populations over the last decade. While enrollments have increased tremendously, due in large part to the Florida program’s creation in the 2005-2006 year, we know that funding has not kept pace with the needs of so many more students. You can look at other trends in spending, quality, and access for these eight states in this interactive data set.

As was noted last year by Celia Ayala, Chief Executive Officer, Los Angeles Universal Preschool, “[w]hile ELLs can come from any linguistic background and therefore include children of any race and ethnicity, Hispanic children merit particular attention as their population grows, but many continue to suffer from an achievement gap.” At least 140,000 ELL students are served in state-funded pre-K programs; this number is likely to be significantly higher as many states with large Hispanic populations could not report ELLs specifically. Less than half of state pre-K programs report limited English proficiency as a factor that may make students eligible for pre-K. The majority of pre-K initiatives require at least one support service for ELLs and their families, with support services ranging from administering a home language survey to providing translators to offering monolingual non-English classes in pre-K.

Recent research on the benefits of bilingualism can bring renewed attention to this important issue. Research has pinpointed significant benefits to bilingualism including increased language and print awareness, classification and reasoning skills, concept formation, visual-spatial skills, and creativity. Bilingual children maintain strong connections to parents, grandparents and extended family leading to improved academic outcomes. Students also benefit from being secure with their home language. There has also been important research in the last few years indicating that attending a high-quality preschool program improves outcomes for Hispanic children, and that dual language practices can enhance outcomes in both English- and Spanish-speaking children. Pre-K attendance can improve early literacy and mathematic skills, and at least this one study found that gains were improved by being in a classroom with a Spanish-speaking teacher.

As the Hispanic student population grows and extends into rural and suburban areas, schools must provide additional supports for those students growing up in a dual-language household. A recent report from the New America Foundation focuses on bilingual education efforts in state-funded pre-K in Illinois and offers sound advice for all pre-K programs as they work to ensure ELLs receive high-quality services:

• ensure that pre-K providers receive financial support from their local districts for resources they spend on English language learners, and that there is an adequate bilingual/ESL budget to cover eligible children;

• track student outcomes for ELL students over time to determine where investment is most (and least) effective; and

• continue to align the ELL experience in pre-K, kindergarten, and the early grades and enable shared professional development opportunities in ELL instruction for teachers and school leaders across the pre-K to third grade span.

Additional recommendations on supporting dual language instruction at both the policy and classroom level can be found in the NIEER presentation “Enhancing Policy and Practice for Young Dual Language Learners: What Is the Research Base?”

There is significant support within the Hispanic community to increase access to quality preschool programs. The National Council of La Raza advocates for supportive programs for both students and families, and international music star and early education advocate Shakira, a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, recently spoke at the Summit of the Americas on the need for quality early learning.

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

3 Comments | Access, Achievement gap, Economics, English Language Learners, Outcomes, Preschool, Research, State-funded programs | Permalink
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Widening Gap in Pre-K Access: Haves and Have Nots

April 17, 2012

Mountains of evidence over years of study have shown that high-quality preschool education helps put kids on the right track for future success in school and beyond, especially those children from low-income families or facing other challenges that put them at a disadvantage. It could not be clearer, though, from our 2011 State Preschool Yearbook that the disparities in state-funded pre-K are so great as to exacerbate lifelong inequalities among children.

As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explained at the Yearbook 2011 release, “High-quality early learning is what we want for our own children—which means that it must be what we want for all children.” Despite the impressive enrollment growth in state-funded preschool—nearly doubling to 1.3 million children in a decade—recession-driven funding cuts have made it difficult to give this opportunity to all children.

Using data from the 2011 Yearbook, GOVERNING Magazine created a map that highlights these disparities. States are shaded based on the percent of their 3- and 4-year-old population served in state-funded pre-K. Eleven states offered no state-funded pre-K in the 2010-2011 school year, including Arizona, which became the first state to completely remove it state-funded pre-K program. Of the 39 states that do provide these programs, an additional 15 did not enroll 3-year-olds, which drives down their percentage served compared to the measure of 4-year-olds served. For example, Florida is ranked number 1 in enrollment for reaching 76 percent of its 4-year-olds, a percentage that is slashed in half to 38 percent when combined with 3-year-olds.

Map from GOVERNING magazine. Click here to use it interactively.

This map is a great tool for some quick looks at regional trends—you can quickly see the “hot spots” for enrollment, including the Wisconsin-Illinois-Iowa trio in the Midwest; the “not so hot spots,” such as the Midwest duo of Michigan and Ohio; and the cold spots, including seven Western states that do not offer programs at all. Additional details on enrollment and spending can be found by clicking on the individual state.

Enrollment, however, only tells part of the story: programs of high-quality are necessary to guarantee long-term gains, but quality varies startlingly from state to state. During the 2010-2011 year, only five states met all 10 of our quality standards benchmarks (Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island), while at the other end of the spectrum, Ohio met only 2. California and Florida met only 3 benchmarks each, which is particularly concerning given that these programs serve each serve more than 100,000 children, including large populations of Hispanic children.

How many preschoolers a program can enroll and what program standards it can effectively meet (i.e., not just on paper) are inherently linked to the funding available. Disparities in resources across states have persisted, contributing to the “haves” and “have nots” in state-funded pre-K. In the report’s executive summary, we say, “Disparities among the states in funding per child are substantial and persistent. In 2001, the difference in spending per child from the highest spending state to the lowest was nearly $9,000. Today, the range is more than $10,000. Massachusetts and Ohio had erratic changes in spending from one year to the next over the decade, but both states ended the period with decreases in pre-K spending of more than $3,000. By contrast, Arkansas and Maryland increased per-child spending over the decade by more than $2,000 each.” Quality, enrollment, and resources do not exist in a vacuum—each factor influences the others in ways that differ by state, but it is clear that too many states are not providing enough per-child funding to ensure quality for the children enrolled in their pre-K programs.

In order to explore these trends more fully, we’ve created a Google Motion chart of interactive Yearbook data. We encourage you to use this animated tool to explore pre-loaded variables on quality, access, and resources across states; you can select a particular state of interest to track its progress relative to other states.

Using our interactive data set via Google Motion Charts, the video above demonstrates the relationship between quality standards met by a state and the state per-child spending over time. On the whole, it’s clear that states have shifted toward meeting more quality standards in 2010-2011 than they did in 2001-2002, though per-child funding has by and large stayed below what is needed to implement these standards and ensure teachers are paid a competitive wage, as presented in Table 7 of the Yearbook.

Education has always been largely funded and controlled at state and local levels, which allows for greater flexibility and a focus based on local needs. However, there is no doubt that such large disparities among states prevent the benefits of early childhood education from reaching all children who could benefit. Given the increasing mobility of American society, the failings of one state to prepare children today is to the detriment of another state’s workforce down the line. We encourage all stakeholders in early childhood education to look at the data not just for their state, but for other states, and reach across state lines to bring best practices home and to their neighbors.

- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

10 Comments | Access, Economics, Outcomes, Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs, Research, State-funded programs | Permalink
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The State of Preschool 2011: Rising Media Star

April 13, 2012

This week we released The State of Preschool 2011: State Preschool Yearbook, our annual survey of state-funded pre-K, at a press conference at the Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C. This year’s report included 10 years worth of data as well as recommendations for the next decade. Speaking at the press conference, NIEER Director Steve Barnett opened his discussion of the report’s findings by emphasizing the impact of high-quality preschool. “One of the few facts that economists of all stripes agree on is that preschool is a good public investment. It’s an investment that can decrease school failure, cut crime, and increase employment. Today more than ever we need such investments,” he said.

Also speaking at the release of The State of Preschool 2011 was U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who stated, “We cannot continue down the path of cutting investments in early learning and jeopardizing the quality of programs for young children. Budgets are never just numbers. How we spend our resources, especially in tough economic times, reflects our values.” Secretary Duncan was referring to the State Preschool Yearbook’s findings that state spending for pre-K has decreased by nearly $60 million since the past year’s report, and per-child spending is down more than $700 over the 10-year period.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and NIEER Director Steve Barnett: two strong advocates for high-quality pre-K.

Dr. Barnett and Secretary Duncan were introduced at the event by Bancroft Elementary School’s Principal Zakiya Reid who also noted the importance of preschool by saying, “We know that high-quality pre-K works. It helps prepare children for school. And research tells us that high-quality pre-K eventually gives children greater opportunities to graduate from high school and pursue college and good careers. … Families need and deserve for their children to have a great start to their education.”

Following the release, Dr. Barnett and findings from The State of Preschool 2011 were featured in a video from NIEER as well as a segment on NBC news. In NIEER’s video statement, Barnett said, “The key message in this year’s report is that cuts are endangering quality, and quality is what’s responsible for the payoff from preschool.” NBC correspondent Tracie Potts’s video segment ran on several affiliate stations throughout the country.

Besides the NBC coverage, the 2011 State Preschool Yearbook story was picked up by additional national outlets, such as The Washington Post, Governing magazine, The Huffington Post, Time magazine, and Education Week, to name a few.

State-specific findings from The State of Preschool 2011 were also covered in numerous state media outlets, including, but not limited to, The Miami Herald, The Huntsville Times, Chicago Parent magazine, The News & Observer, The Seattle Times, The Charleston Daily Mail, Dayton Daily News, The Press of Atlantic City, Tulsa World, The Times-Picayune, The Orlando Sentinel, Cronkite News, The Washington Examiner, The Tennessean, Oakland Tribune, The Columbus Dispatch, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.