The need for valid and reliable ways to assess developmental outcomes of preschool children becomes continually more acute as public investments in preschool education grow, with corresponding pressure for programs to demonstrate their ability to influence child outcomes. The authors conducted studies of one assessment widely used in Head Start…

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…

A growing number of states are interested in tracking the readiness of children entering kindergarten. In 2010, just seven states (Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, and Vermont) collected Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) data for the purposes of aggregating data at the state level. Since this time, most states report…