Does universal preschool lead to better academic outcomes?
Wiley
Several states, including Georgia, offer state-funded pre-kindergarten programs to students regardless of their family’s income. New research in Economic Inquiry investigates whether such programs offer long-lasting academic benefits to all students.
Using enrollment lottery data from a large school district in metro Atlanta, investigators found that lottery-winning enrollees of school-based pre-kindergarten entered kindergarten more prepared in both math and reading than non-winning peers. Gains tended to fade by the end of kindergarten, however, and some negative achievement effects emerged by grade 4.
Students receiving free-and-reduced-price meals at school seemed to benefit more than other students in grades 1, 2, and 4, suggesting greater benefits from attendance for disadvantaged students. No effects were found regarding discipline while enrollees had one fewer absence each grade after kindergarten.
“Our research shows that Georgia’s Pre-K program gives children a strong start, but the challenge is maintaining those early advantages,” said corresponding author Ishtiaque Fazlul, PhD, of the University of Georgia. “This study reinforces the importance of Pre-K, especially for low-income families, while also showing that we need to think about how to better support students beyond Pre-K.”
URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.13288
Additional Information
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Journal
Economic Inquiry
Article Title
Assessing the Benefits of Education in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Pre-K Lottery in Georgia
Article Publication Date
9-Apr-2025
RAND survey reveals varied curriculum use and time constraints among public school pre-k teachers
RAND Corporation
According to a new RAND survey, over 80% of public school-based pre-kindergarten (pre-K) teachers use multiple curriculum materials. Some combine materials that focus on a particular domain – such as literacy or numeracy – while others use material that covers many domains at once, and some use both. More than two-thirds reported using materials that they created themselves, often in conjunction with commercial curricula.
Most public school-based pre-K educators surveyed believe their instructional materials are high quality, especially for promoting development in language and literacy, early numeracy, and social and emotional domains.
These are the first findings from the new American Pre-K Teacher Survey, the only nationally representative standing panel of public school-based pre-K teachers in the United States, fielded through RAND’s American Teacher Panel. For this report, researchers surveyed over 1,300 public school pre-K teachers in April and May 2024.
“About 60% of children enrolled in publicly-funded pre-K programs are located in public schools, and there's a growing interest in better understanding how these programs work,” said Anna Shapiro, lead author of the report and an associate policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “As states expand public school-based pre-K programs, researchers and policymakers are looking to understand what makes them effective. So we asked part-day and full-day classroom teachers about the curriculum and assessment materials they use, their instructional planning time and access to professional learning to understand the resources public school-based teachers have to support children’s learning.”
The survey sheds light on the differences between full-day and part-day pre-K classrooms in public schools. Less than one-third of pre-K teachers strongly agree that they have sufficient time during contracted hours for tasks supporting instructional delivery, such as planning classroom activities, using assessment data to support student learning and completing administrative tasks. This issue is more acute among part-day teachers, who report less training on instructional materials and inadequate time for instructional planning compared to their full-day peers. Additionally, less than half of the teachers surveyed have dedicated time for coordination across grades or dedicated time for kindergarten transition.
This report is based on research funded by the Gates Foundation.
Other authors of “Instructional Resources in School-Based Pre-K: Findings from the Spring 2024 American Pre-K Teacher Survey” are Elizabeth D. Steiner, Ashley Woo, Jill S. Cannon, Christopher Joseph Doss, Lynn A. Karoly and Emma B. Kassan.
RAND Education and Labor conducts research on early childhood through postsecondary education programs, workforce development, and programs and policies affecting workers, entrepreneurship, financial literacy and decisionmaking.
In addition to participation in school-based extracurricular activities, U.S. adolescents who participate in faith-based or community-based extracurricular activities may be more likely to identify the risks of binge-drinking behavior
PLOS
image:
Young adult holds a drink
view moreCredit: Photo by Kacper G on Unsplash (free to use under the Unsplash License)
Scientists from Yale University report that in addition to participation in school-based extracurricular activities, U.S. adolescents who participate in faith-based or community-based extracurricular activities may be more likely to identify the risks of binge-drinking behavior, which could be an important consideration when developing preventions for excessive alcohol consumption.
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Article URL: https://plos.io/4jHh7Dd
Article Title: Adolescent extracurricular activities and perception of risk of harm from binge drinking
Author Countries: United States
Funding: This study was financially supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (https://nida.nih.gov) in the form of a "NIDA Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL)" award (UH3DA050251) received by LF. This study was also financially supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the form of a "NIDA Diversity Supplement" award (UH3DA050251-031S1) and a grant (K23DA059638) received by KA. This study was also financially supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (https://www.dorisduke.org) in the form of an award (2020145) administered through the Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists at Yale received by KA. This study was also financially supported by the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (https://medicine.yale.edu/center-clinical-investigation) in the form of "Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program" awards received by C-SFF (KL2TR001862) and KA (UL1TR001863). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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