Measuring kindergarten readiness is essential to identifying children who would benefit from additional supports, either in kindergarten or in the years before kindergarten entry. Several measures of kindergarten readiness are in use now by states and researchers. Most assess individual children at the time they enter kindergarten, using teachers…

Research has demonstrated that federal Head Start centers, which provide preschool care to children from low-income families, have little or no long-term academic value for children. This "Backgrounder" adds to the evidence that Head Start has failed to achieve its objectives and should be sunset, not expanded, by demonstrating a…

In October 2008, Governor Steven Beshear formed the Higher Education Work Group (HEWG), a bipartisan body of prominent business, education, and policy leaders. As a first step, the Governor called on the group to propose measures that could be implemented immediately to improve college access and affordability in the Commonwealth. HEWG recommends…

Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) researchers visited 38 public high schools around the United States in 2007 and 2008 with the goal of validating and operationalizing a definition of college readiness. Schools in the sample were selected because they were demonstrating success at enabling more students from underrepresented groups to…

Publicly funded prekindergartens are programs that most states use to promote school readiness, especially of 4-year-old children at risk for academic problems due to poverty. Despite large public expenditures, these programs have not been widely evaluated. We examined 240 randomly selected pre-kindergarten programs in six states with mature…

"School Readiness Indicators: Making Progress for Young Children" was a multi-state initiative that used child well-being indicators to build a change agenda in states and local communities in order to improve school readiness and ensure early school success. The central premise behind this initiative was that top-notch school readiness…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of Project STEPS (Sequenced Transition to Education in the Public Schools), a 3-year outreach project designed to provide training and technical assistance (TA) related to the development of statewide transition systems for children with disabilities, birth through 5 years of age, and…

During the 1990s, Kentucky has undergone an extensive educational renaissance guided by three milestones: enactment of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA); creation of the nation's first Workforce Development Cabinet; and development of the Kentucky Strategic Plan for Higher Education in Kentucky. This report to President Bush describes…

This evaluation of the Kentucky Preschool Program (KPP) focused on two broad areas: (1) readiness for kindergarten; and (2) promotion of language and literacy in the classroom and at home. Key findings include the following: (1) most children who were ineligible because of family income status successfully transitioned to kindergarten; (2) several…

This report outlines the national and state environmental context for the SECCS Initiative in supporting MCH strategic planning in early childhood systems building. This strategic context has implications for roles, relationships, and activities within a planning process and ultimately an implementation process. It summarizes the opportunities and…