3-044 - Evaluating Publicly-Funded Preschool Programs: Understanding Impacts, Impact Variation, and Lasting Effects

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Public investments in early childhood education (ECE) have increased over the past several years (e.g., Friedman-Krauss et al., 2018) with the goal of improving children’s school readiness. Evaluations of high quality publicly-funded ECE have found large gains for children’s learning at kindergarten entry, particularly for disadvantaged children (Barnett, 2011; Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2013; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Less is known about the longer-term impacts of these programs, including how they vary for key populations.

This session will explore impacts of publicly-funded preschool across subgroups and over time including evaluations of three state-funded preschool programs and a synthesis of long-term impacts of publicly-funded ECE programs in the U.S. and abroad. Paper 1 uses a regression discontinuity design to evaluate New Mexico PreK across five cohorts finding significant impacts on children’s school readiness that vary by children’s race/ethnicity. Paper 2 examines the impacts of West Virginia’s Universal Pre-K program on children’s language, math, literacy, and executive function skills through first grade, finding that children who attended the program scored higher on language, math and literacy at kindergarten entry. Paper 3 will present impacts of New Jersey’s Abbott Preschool Program on student achievement, grade retention, and special education placement through middle and high school. Finally, paper 4 presents a review of existing research on large scale public preschool programs. The results support the effectiveness of large-scale public ECE to increase children’s learning in ways that can lead to greater school success. These papers add to the research base supporting public investments in preschool.

Sub Unit

• School Readiness/Childcare

Chair

• Christina Weiland, University of Michigan

Individual Presentations

• New Mexico PreK Impacts: Regression-Discontinuity Results Overall and by Child Race/Ethnicity and Cohort - Presenting Author: Jason T Hustedt, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Kwanghee Jung, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: Allison Friedman-Krauss, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: W. Steven Barnett, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: Gerilyn Slicker, University of Delaware

• An Impact Evaluation of West Virginia Universal Pre-K - Presenting Author: Milagros Nores, National Institute for Early Education Research; Non-Presenting Author: Kwanghee Jung, NIEER/Rutgers University

• Impacts of the New Jersey Abbott Preschool Program through Middle and High School - Presenting Author: Allison Friedman-Krauss, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: W. Steven Barnett, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: Kwanghee Jung, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: Ran Guo, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: Ellen Frede, NIEER/Rutgers University

• Short- and Long-term Effects of Large-Scale Public Preschool Programs on Children’s Academic Achievement - Presenting Author: W. Steven Barnett, NIEER/Rutgers University; Non-Presenting Author: Kwanghee Jung, NIEER/Rutgers University