District-Wide Pre-K Reduces Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Literacy, Socio-Emotional, and Cognitive Skills

• In Event: Exploring the Impacts of U.S. Pre-K and Kindergarten Policies

Abstract

Racial and ethnic disparities that persist through K-12 are present at Kindergarten entry. Disparities present at Kindergarten have shrunk over recent decades partly because of increased access to pre-K for low-income families. In this longitudinal study, we show how much a large, subsidized, urban school district pre-K program can mitigate or exacerbate racial/ethnic disparities among its students in literacy, socioemotional, and cognitive skills during pre-K. Disparities in all skills reduce substantially (up to 0.5 SD). Disparities in socioemotional skills disappear. Among cognitive skills, disparities remain large by spring of pre-K. Comparing within the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles, to examine whether pre-K mitigates disparities across the skill distribution, disparities begin widest and converge least near the 10th percentile.

Authors

• Carrie Townley Flores, Stanford University

• Michael Sulik, Stanford University

• Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University