As the number of publicly funded early childhood education (ECE) programs increases, policymakers will need empirical evidence to justify the taxpayer investment. Such justification will require a stronger understanding of the essential components of an ECE program's design, as well as solid evidence on which components, or constellations of…

High-quality pre-K that really improves children's outcomes--that's the goal early childhood professionals will work toward with this groundbreaking text, the first volume in the NEW National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) series. Combining the most current knowledge of top researchers, policy makers, and federal and…

Preliminary findings of this research effort provide support for the hypothesis that existing databases maintained by federal agencies for administrative or monitoring purposes can serve as useful data sources in special education policy research. The research explored the relationships among a number of state-level special education, fiscal, and…

For 17 years, the Fort Worth Independent School District has offered full-day prekindergarten for educationally disadvantaged children residing in Chapter I attendance areas. During the 1984-85 academic year, the program was offered to 1,936 children who were four years old prior to September 1, 1984 and scored seven or fewer items correct on the…

If schools improved the academic performance of at-risk students beginning in the early years and continuing through the elementary grades, this improvement would have multiple positive effects on student dropout, delinquency, pregnancy, substance abuse, and other behaviors. Early improvement of poor academic performance could greatly alleviate…