Search

In 2011-2012, the Georgia legislature funded a series of ongoing studies to evaluate Georgia's Pre-K Program. The 2016-2017 Georgia's Pre-K Program Evaluation focuses on the results of the fourth year of this longitudinal study, through second grade. The purpose of the current evaluation study was to examine longitudinal outcomes for children related to key academic and social skills as well as the quality of their classrooms from pre-k through second grade. The primary evaluation questions included: (1) What are the learning outcomes through second grade for children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program?; (2) What factors predict better learning outcomes for children?; and (3) What is the quality of children's instructional experiences from pre-k through second grade? To address these questions, the evaluation study included a sample of 1,169 children (139 Spanish-speaking dual language learners/DLLs) attending a random sample of 199 Georgia's Pre-K classrooms in year 1. Of the original sample of children, 1,034 were followed into kindergarten in year 2 (118 Spanish-speaking DLLs), 969 (119 Spanish-speaking DLLs) were followed into first grade in year 3, and 951 (116 Spanish-speaking DLLs) were followed into second grade in year 4. Researchers conducted individual child assessments near the beginning and end of each year to examine growth in children's skills. The assessment measures covered multiple domains of learning, including language, literacy, math, executive function, and teacher ratings of behavior skills. For the DLL subsample, parallel assessments were conducted in both English and Spanish. Researchers also conducted observations in children's classrooms each year from pre-k through second grade to gather data on the quality of teacher-child instructional interactions using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). In addition, information about characteristics of the classrooms, teachers, and children was gathered from teacher and parent surveys and from existing statewide pre-k program data. Child/family characteristics, classroom/teacher characteristics, and classroom quality were examined as predictors of children's growth in skills. Overall, this large, representative sample of children who attended Georgia's Pre-K continued to perform near the mean on most standardized measures based on national norms by the end of second grade. Although children continued to learn and develop throughout this period, their growth was greater than expected from pre-k through kindergarten, but decreased during first and second grades for most measures. [For the executive summary of this report, see ED598161.]

The primary purpose of the 2017-2018 NC Pre-Kindergarten (NC Pre-K) Evaluation was to examine the effectiveness of the NC Pre-K Program using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. The major issue addressed by this type of study is around the benefits of offering children access to enrollment in NC Pre-K. An RCT is considered the gold-standard design for addressing such a question because children are randomly assigned to either receive the program (treatment) or not (control). Therefore, differences in outcomes can be causally attributed to whether or not they received treatment rather than to other differences between the children and families in the two different groups. This study is designed to follow children longitudinally from pre-k into elementary school in order to examine the short- and longer-term effects. The current study (2017-2018) provided baseline data about children's outcomes during their pre-k year. This small-scale study compared 582 children who were randomly assigned to either NC Pre-K (Treatment=473) or the waitlist (Control=109) in two selected counties with substantially large waitlists. Because children in both groups had applied to and were eligible for NC Pre-K, they had similar characteristics. However, because not everyone could be served with the available number of program slots, random assignment was used to select children for NC Pre-K or the waitlist (with very few crossovers between groups). The study considered factors that might affect the impact of receiving the treatment -- specifically, children's level of oral language proficiency and classroom quality for children in preschool settings. In addition, the study also included a sample of children who were Spanish-speaking dual language learners and gathered data in both Spanish and English to examine the effects of treatment in both their first and second languages. [For the executive summary of this report, see ED598159.]

The primary purpose of the 2016-2017 North Carolina (NC) Pre-Kindergarten (NC Pre-K) Evaluation study was to examine variability in enrollment practices within the statewide Pre-K Program. Four major categories of enrollment practices were examined: recruitment, application, placement, and waitlist. The study involved all 91 local NC Pre-K Program contracts, with data gathered through both surveys and phone interviews. The results provided information about local variations in implementation of the NC Pre-K Program and how these variations impacted who was served and not served by the program; how placement decisions were made; who was on the waitlist (i.e., those who applied to the NC Pre-K Program but were not selected); and the extent of collaboration and coordination of NC Pre-K with other programs and agencies. Second, these data also were used to inform the feasibility and design of the subsequent year's evaluation utilizing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. These data provided information about how children were recruited and placed, which populations of children were served by the program, where there were sufficient waitlists to conduct random assignment into the program, and the likely make-up of the control group to help guide sample selection, study recruitment, and the development of procedures for collaborating with local Pre-K administrators and programs on the study. In addition, key characteristics of the NC Pre-K Program during the 2016-2017 year, along with trends over time (2003-2004 to 2016-2017), were examined based on statewide administrative data (NC Pre-K Kids and NC Pre-K Plan). Information examined included characteristics of the local NC Pre-K settings, the children served, the qualifications of teachers, and the distributions and counts of program participants and service providers. Since the inception of the statewide Pre-K program in North Carolina in 2001-2002, the evaluation has been conducted by the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

In 2011-2012, the Georgia legislature funded a series of ongoing studies to evaluate Georgia's Pre-K Program. The 2016-2017 Georgia's Pre-K Program Evaluation focuses on the results of the fourth year of this longitudinal study, through second grade. The purpose of the current evaluation study was to examine longitudinal outcomes for children related to key academic and social skills as well as the quality of their classrooms from pre-k through second grade. The primary evaluation questions included: (1) What are the learning outcomes through second grade for children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program?; (2) What factors predict better learning outcomes for children?; and (3) What is the quality of children's instructional experiences from pre-k through second grade? To address these questions, the evaluation study included a sample of 1,169 children (139 Spanish-speaking dual language learners/DLLs) attending a random sample of 199 Georgia's Pre-K classrooms in year 1. Of the original sample of children, 1,034 were followed into kindergarten in year 2 (118 Spanish-speaking DLLs), 969 (119 Spanish-speaking DLLs) were followed into first grade in year 3, and 951 (116 Spanish-speaking DLLs) were followed into second grade in year 4. Researchers conducted individual child assessments near the beginning and end of each year to examine growth in children's skills. The assessment measures covered multiple domains of learning, including language, literacy, math, executive function, and teacher ratings of behavior skills. For the DLL subsample, parallel assessments were conducted in both English and Spanish. Researchers also conducted observations in children's classrooms each year from pre-k through second grade to gather data on the quality of teacher-child instructional interactions using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). In addition, information about characteristics of the classrooms, teachers, and children was gathered from teacher and parent surveys and from existing statewide pre-k program data. Child/family characteristics, classroom/teacher characteristics, and classroom quality were examined as predictors of children's growth in skills. Overall, this large, representative sample of children who attended Georgia's Pre-K continued to perform near the mean on most standardized measures based on national norms by the end of second grade. Although children continued to learn and develop throughout this period, their growth was greater than expected from pre-k through kindergarten, but decreased during first and second grades for most measures. This executive summary highlights the results of the study and provides and overview of the Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study. [For the full report, see ED598162.]

The primary purpose of the 2017-2018 NC Pre-Kindergarten (NC Pre-K) Evaluation was to examine the effectiveness of the NC Pre-K Program using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. Because children are randomly assigned to either receive NC Pre-K (treatment) or not (control) in an RCT, differences in outcomes can be causally attributed to treatment rather than to other differences between the children and families in the two different groups. This small-scale study is designed to follow children longitudinally from pre-k into elementary school in order to examine the short- and longer-term effects. The current study (2017-2018) provided baseline data during the pre-k year for 582 children who were randomly assigned to either NC Pre-K (treatment=473) or the waitlist (control=109) in two selected counties with large waitlists (with very few crossovers between groups). The RCT study addressed three primary research questions: (1) Do children who receive access to enrollment in NC Pre-K (treatment group) exhibit better outcomes than children who do not receive access to enrollment (control group)?; (2) Are there factors that affect the impact of treatment -- children's level of oral language proficiency or pre-k classroom quality?; and (3) What are the effects for children who are dual-language learners? This executive summary highlights the results of the study and provides and overview of the NC Pre-Kindergarten program. [For the full report, see ED598158.]