The Effects of Tulsa's Universal PreK Program on Middle School Outcomes

• In Event: 1-050 - As the Twig is Bent...Sustained Effects of Contemporary Public PreK Programs

Integrative Statement

As states have upgraded their commitment to PreK education, questions have arisen. Critics argue that program effects are likely to fade out or disappear over time, while supporters contend that program effects persist under certain conditions. A recent consensus statement on early childhood education’s longer term effects found evidence of both fadeout and persistence (Phillips et al., 2017). Few studies of PreK, notably those that are universal, have followed students through to middle school or beyond, and this study takes an important next step. The present study examines the relation between PreK and students’ academic and behavioral achievement through middle school.

We focus on Tulsa Public Schools students who enrolled in kindergarten in the fall of 2006. Using data from four Tulsa area school districts and the state of Oklahoma and propensity score weighting, we estimate the effects of Tulsa’s universal PreK program on multiple measures of academic performance and behavior for middle school students. Propensity score and multiple regression covariates were derived from school administrative data and a parent survey from fall 2006; variables include maternal education and marital status, presence of the biological father at home, Internet access, the number of books in the home, child care at three years old, free lunch status, gender, and race. Our data base includes 1,992 students for some outcomes, 2,656 students for others, depending on whether outcomes were from the school districts or state, respectively. Outcomes included state standardized test scores, grades, honors course enrollment, special education status, attendance, suspensions, and grade retention. We used multiple imputation, generating 40 imputed datasets, given missing data on student covariates. Descriptive statistics are found in Table 1.

We find enduring effects on math achievement test scores, enrollment in honors courses, and grade retention for students as a whole, and similar effects for certain subgroups (see Table 2). We conclude that some positive effects of a high-quality PreK program are discernible as late as middle school and discuss implications for a high school follow-up. We hope to be able to report preliminary findings for the effects of Tulsa’s universal PreK program on early enrollment in Algebra I and AP courses, performance on PSAT and pre-ACT tests, and high school dropout rates.

Authors

• William Gormley, Georgetown University
  Presenting Author

• Sara Anderson, West Virginia University
  Non-Presenting Author