Atlanta 323: Partnerships for School Readiness and Achievement From Age 3 to Grade 3

• In Event: Research-Practice Partnerships for Quality Improvement in Early Education: Best Practices and Creative Solutions

Abstract

Atlanta 323 is a research alliance between Atlanta Public Schools (APS) and Georgia State University (GSU) focused on Atlanta’s preschool to 3rd grade (P3) early childhood system.
P3 early childhood systems are characterized by coordination and alignment of multiple programs and services for early childhood (Birth to 5) and early elementary grades (K-3), including programs internal and external to the public school system. Because children enter P3 systems from different backgrounds, with different learning capacities and with diverse early learning opportunities, a systematic and comprehensive focus is necessary to ensure that policies and programs meet all children’s needs and ensure equitable opportunity for school success. Atlanta 323 leverages existing activities and partnerships to focus on one of the critical stages in the evolution of a P3 system: developing the research infrastructure that will allow APS and its stakeholders to utilize data to inform programmatic, practice, and policy decisions.

Towards that end, the Atlanta 323 team will (1) build an integrated longitudinal database linking school readiness and achievement data from preschool through 3rd grade, (2) engage early childhood education providers to gather data for the database, (3) conduct initial P3 research studies, and (4) establish design teams to develop and study solutions to challenges that emerge from the findings. By working collaboratively to create conditions for ongoing strategic and informed decision-making, the Atlanta 323 team will create a shared space for researchers and leaders in the university, school district, and community to ensure that all of Atlanta’s children have a seamless high-quality pathway from birth to college and career.

During the roundtable, we will discuss the purpose and emergence of our research practice partnership. We will also discuss early research findings from our partnership, which focus on school readiness among children who attended pre-kindergarten in APS when they enter kindergarten in the district, how readiness varies across the district, and the relations between readiness and achievement through 3rd grade. Finally, we will discuss the challenges and successes we have encountered with two primary objectives of our partnership. First, by including several preschool and pre-kindergarten providers across the city, we are expanding the existing partnership between APS and GSU to include new partners and stakeholders. In order to engage these new partners meaningfully, we are now considering ways to modify to our structure and activities, including developing a shared research agenda that expands beyond the school district. Second, by building an integrated longitudinal database, we will create a resource that can be readily used by researchers in the school district and university, but perhaps not by our early learning partners or their teachers. In order to ensure that our activities helpful to these end-users, we are exploring ways to both communicate findings and to organize design research teams to respond to these findings in P3 classrooms.

Authors

• Nicole Patton-Terry, Georgia State University

• Janelle Clay

• Charles Kevin Fortner, University of North Carolina

• Gary E. Bingham, Georgia State University