As part of its Partnership for Pre-K Improvement (PPI) initiative, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored the RAND Corporation to study the cost of high-quality pre-K programming. The RAND study included three states--Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington--that were partnering with the foundation under PPI. The objective of the study was to…

There is strong evidence that children who attend high-quality pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs learn skills that benefit them in school and life. The price tag of most private programs puts them out of reach for some families, however. In response, many states and school districts fund pre-K programs to expand opportunities for their youngest…

States and localities throughout the United States are expanding their investments in pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs. Although spending on publicly funded pre-K programs is well documented, relatively less is known about the true cost to deliver the programs, especially considering varying quality standards and accounting for the resources used…

We systematically examine the existing evidence and compute meta-analytic averages for the effects of scaled-up, publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programmes in the United States on student mathematics and reading achievement. The analysis is restricted to experimental and quasi-experimental research designs with the highest internal…

On February 24, 2017, all of the authors of the state-of-the-state manuscripts published in the "Journal of Education Finance" met in Cincinnati, Ohio, to participate in a roundtable discussion focused on recent legislative actions in 38 states. A majority of those papers were revised to reflect a final report on legislative actions…

In order to inform the Indiana State Board of Education's decision-making on Indiana's On My Way Pre-K Pilot program, researchers at the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University compiled existing data on ten states that have implemented pilot pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs and subsequently expanded these programs…

Calls for universal preschool programs have become commonplace, reinforced by President Obama's call for "high-quality preschool for all" in 2013. Any program that could cost state and federal taxpayers $50 billion per year warrants a closer look at the evidence on its effectiveness. This report reviews the major evaluations of preschool…

Current research seeks to determine if today's pre-K programs provide strong returns on investment similar to the returns from the classic 1960's High/Scope Perry Preschool Program and 1970's North Carolina Abecedarian Project. These were known for the positive academic effects that children experienced as they moved through school. Policy-makers…

In this report, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) highlight instructional and community-based strategies for strong public schools in Georgia. The authors offer eight essential, evidence-based strategies for success: (1) Access to high quality early childhood and pre-K education; (2)…

This report portrays various performance indicators that are intended to facilitate an assessment of the postsecondary education system in Indiana. Descriptive statistics are presented for Indiana and five other comparison states as well as the nation. Comparison states were selected according to the degree of similarity of population…

This brief is based on the 61-page report of the same name. This paper, commissioned by the Brookings Institution, studies the emergence of the mixed delivery model, in which pre-kindergarten is delivered in community-based settings and schools. It describes findings of a state survey CLASP conducted to understand the policy choices,…