This publication summarizes an academic review paper on preschool effectiveness, "Lottery Evidence on the Impact of Preschool in the United States: A Review and Meta-Analysis" by Jesse Bruhn and Emily Emick. The 44 papers summarized fall into three categories: studies of three model preschool programs begun in the 1960s known as…

This document compiles information from multiple sources to offer readers a snapshot of Preschool Development and Expansion Grant (PDG) states' progress towards implementing a full comprehensive assessment system, as well as the tools they are using for each of the components.

The Center for American Progress released a proposal in February to expand access to preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. The Obama administration released a plan in the fiscal year 2014 budget to invest $75 billion over the next 10 years to provide all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds with access to high-quality preschool programs through a…

In China, the Central People's Government (2010) recently promulgated the "Compendium for China's Mid- and Long-Term Education Development," which declared that 95% of Chinese children should receive at least one year of preschool education, while 75% of children should receive a three-year preschool education by 2020. Subsequently, The…

Publicly supported, high-quality preschool education is among the most successful and well-documented of education reforms. There is near-universal agreement that high-quality preschool programs more than pay for themselves in economic and social benefits. Program quality is absolutely critical. While no one factor can be considered determinative,…

Preschool education is increasingly being recognized as an integral part of efforts to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn and as a way to help close the achievement gaps that exist at the time children enter kindergarten. Such efforts are growing across the country. According to the most recent data, 54 different preschool…

Preschool classrooms generate a host of data that can be used to inform program improvement. This article suggests ways to document child-level data and mentoring protocols in a way that makes the information usable to teachers and can positively influence child outcomes.

The benefits of drawing for children are wide-ranging but are likely to be mediated by the art curriculum and other governmental guidance to teachers relevant to drawing/art. Furthermore, such statutory regulations vary between cultures, and therefore curricula represent an important influence on the cultural differences found in children's…

This report provides a portrait of children who entered Head Start for the first time in fall 2009 and completed a year in the program in spring 2010. It also describes their family backgrounds and the classrooms and programs that serve them. Data are drawn from the 2009 cohort of the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), a…

(Purpose) After an extensive search, which included the Internet, four state Departments of Education, and national and state agencies for the gifted, were told by a national agency for gifted children that no standards, specifically for gifted preschool children, existed. The purpose of this paper is to create standards for a preschool gifted…

When "Exchange" magazine was launched 30 years ago, programs serving young children were either called day care centers (full day) or nursery schools (part day). Over the years as early childhood professionals recognized that all services for preschool children provide a combination of caring, education, and development, the names of programs, and…

Conducting research is an ever evolving process of deepening one's understanding of multiple research concepts and issues. In the research on Head Start that this author and her colleagues conducted under the tutelage of Dr Sally Lubeck, their research team increased their knowledge and experience of research while developing a contextualized…

In 2001, The Pew Charitable Trusts learned of an important strategy that could dramatically improve children's success but had been largely overlooked by policy makers--high-quality early education programs in the years just before kindergarten. Soon after, it launched a new campaign to highlight the evidence and advance policies at the state and…

The purpose of this 4-year efficacy trial, funded by IES under the Mathematics and Science Education topic, is to study the efficacy of a (Tier 1) core kindergarten math curriculum, "Early Learning in Mathematics" (ELM), when implemented under rigorous experimental conditions. In the first year of this study (2008-09), kindergarten…

This report presents findings of the fifth impact evaluation of Head Start's 15 Resource Access Projects (RAPs), offering data for the 1980-81 program year. RAPs are the designated liaison between Head Start grantees and state and local education systems, and they also train Head Start staff to work with handicapped children and their families.…