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…

Using a Bernsteinian theoretical framework, this study compares two American early childhood centres, one with a primarily progressive pedagogy (Frank Lloyd Wright Family Centre) and one with a primarily traditional pedagogy (Casimir Pulaski Centre), in high-poverty Chicago neighbourhoods to examine the effects of different pedagogic practices on…

It's no mystery why children from low-income families often arrive at the kindergarten door lagging substantially behind their wealthier peers in foundational vocabulary, literacy, math, and social skills. These children, writes Cynthia Lamy are less likely to have the early educational supports their wealthier peers receive. They are less…

In the first volume of the "Oxford Review of Education" Jerome Bruner (1975) showed how the upbringing of the very young is influenced by poverty, and how different kinds of upbringing shape human development. He called the paper "Poverty and childhood" and baldly stated "With respect to virtually any criterion of equal…

This study investigated the extent to which early education classrooms across Indiana implemented evidence-based practices and how well the classrooms of different types of early education programs in our state compared with one another. Evidence-based effective curricula increase children's learning compared to those that are not effective. This…

The Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) and the Center on School Turnaround (CST) collaborated to develop case studies of three selected schools receiving SIG funds that have, with the support of their districts, promoted the use of early childhood programming (PK-3) as a key strategy in their schools' turnaround models. The goal…

Lead educational agencies (LEDs), school administrators, and teachers do not appear to grasp the influence of curriculum audits on students' academic performance relative to the level of recommendations that are implemented. Failure to comply fully with audit recommendations can have negative implications on a district's financial status and…

This article introduces a multilevel growth mixture model (MGMM) for classifying both the individuals and the groups they are nested in. Nine variations of the general model are described that differ in terms of categorical and continuous latent variable specification within and between groups. An application in the context of school effectiveness…

Early education has been a growing priority for the Obama administration, and its competitive funding is spurring innovation in this field around the country. In 2013, early education journalist Paul Nyhan, author of this report, conducted case studies of four competitive grant programs that are triggering changes in early education: "Race to…

This article examines an extraordinarily successful early childhood education teacher preparation program at an urban 2-year college struggling with retention. The Early Childhood Education Program in this case study is able to maintain a graduation rate that is over four times greater than that of the college average and has a reputation for…

For state and federal officials seeking to improve school performance, 50 years of evidence shows that high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten is among the best strategies for education reform. This brief from Pew's Pre-K Now initiative highlighted findings from evaluations of state-funded Pre-K programs that continue to document gains in key…

Faced with rising demand for information about early childhood programs, states need to find tools and strategies to monitor the progress of and to identify high-quality early childhood programs. In response, REL Mid-Atlantic convened a regional workgroup for state personnel who work with the systems containing early childhood data. The workgroup…

The Children's Center, located in Honolulu, offers a full-day child care and preschool program for up to 125 children, ages two through five in one of seven classrooms. As part of the University community, the Children's Center is a site for students, faculty, and the community members to observe good practice in early childhood education and…

This paper presents a comparative case study involving eight teachers from two Reggio-inspired schools that focuses on how teachers negotiate a Reggio-inspired approach in the American context. This study first identifies the struggles these eight teachers faced in applying the philosophical beliefs borrowed from this Italian-born approach. With…

This article focuses on the transition that children make from the outdoor area in the Foundation Stage to the school playground in Key Stage One. With the recent emphasis on outdoor learning in the Foundation Stage it looks at the way in which one school has attempted to overcome discontinuity in learning between key stages by making learning…