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…

The United States is becoming a more culturally and linguistically diverse nation. This is especially true when we look at the youngest generation of learners. This growing diversity increases the need to accurately identify young children as dual language learners (DLLs) prior to kindergarten. Ensuring educators have a strong understanding of…

Publicly funded pre-K is often touted as a means to narrow achievement gaps, but this goal is less likely to be achieved if poor and/or minority children do not, at a minimum, attend equal quality pre-K as their non-poor, non-minority peers. In this paper, I find large "quality gaps" in public pre-K between poor, minority students and…

This study investigates the relationship between internal teacher profiles and pre-K teacher-child interaction quality in the pre-K classroom. Two questions were addressed: (1) What internal profiles exist for pre-kindergarten (pre-K) teachers? and (2) Do internal profiles relate to observed structural and process quality in the pre-K classroom?…

There are multiple explanations for why many children do not have access to well-prepared pre-K teachers. The five programs profiled in this report show that it is possible to give pre-K teachers rich, research-based training that prepares them to work with young children. However, there is a scarcity of opportunities focused on the developmental…

There are currently 2 principal models of publicly funded prekindergarten programs (pre-K): targeted pre-K, which is means-tested, and universal pre-K. These programs often differ in terms of the economic characteristics of the preschoolers enrolled. Studies have documented links between individual achievement in school-age children and the…

A quantifiable measure of teachers' intervention fidelity when delivering curriculum-based interventions allows researchers to interpret the effectiveness of the curricula under scrutiny. Fidelity measures, however, must accurately represent the critical components of an intervention to confirm that the intervention was delivered as intended and…

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…

Since 2011, Grantmakers for Education has offered a series of investigative programs designed to examine the role grantmakers can play in creating more equitable systems of education. GFE's programming included place-based programs in El Paso, Texas, Newark, New Jersey, Oakland, California, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. During this time, Grantmakers…

Families, teachers and policy makers increasingly understand that high-quality pre-kindergarten is a critical part of children's educational experience. In 13 states and the District of Columbia, Pre-K programs are financed through the school funding formula. This report, co-written with the Education Law Center, discussed the benefits and…

Research Findings: As policymakers expand access to preschool, the sociodemographic composition of preschool classrooms will become increasingly important. These efforts may create programs that increase the concentration of children from low-income families or, alternatively, foster the creation of socioeconomically diverse preschool classrooms.…

The Head Start program, overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services and administered by the Office of Head Start, provides child development services primarily to low-income families and their children. Federal law allows up to 10 percent of enrolled families to have incomes above 130 percent of the poverty line--GAO (Government…

When it comes to educational challenges, the nation's 12.1 million Hispanic schoolchildren face plenty: language, poverty, lower-than-average graduation rates for high school and college, and, more recently, a wave of laws targeting illegal immigrants that has made school seem like less of a safe haven for Hispanic students in some states. Yet, as…

This legislative report presents the findings of a 1986 telephone survey of states that have enacted state-funded pre-kindergarten early childhood education programs. The survey was designed to collect data related to the legislative authority, intent, and oversight of the early childhood education programs and to gain information on the…

Valencia, Perez & Echeveste (VPE) and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) designed a survey to capture Latino adults' opinions about the benefits, importance, and costs associated with enrolling children in pre-kindergarten programs. The objective of the survey was to gauge support for government-subsidized pre-kindergarten programs among…