Pre-K Enrollments and Teaching Environments in North Carolina Elementary Schools.

Prior research finds that some high-quality preschool programs are successful in generating significant initial academic gains and long-term benefits for students as they progress through school. This study examines one of the mechanisms through which North Carolina's statewide pre-K program (NC Pre-K) may generate such benefits: improvements in the teaching environments of the elementary schools in which NC Pre-K graduates enroll. We find that an increased presence of former NC Pre-K students in elementary schools over the period 2004-2018 was associated with better teachers' perceptions of different dimensions of their teaching environment, as well as increased teacher and principal retention. Our findings suggest that pre-K expansion policies may benefit the entire school community.

Understanding Heterogeneity in the Impact of Public Preschool Programs.

We examine the North Carolina Pre-K (NC Pre-K) program to test the hypothesis that observed variation in effects resulting from exposure to the program can be attributed to interactions with other environmental factors that occur before, during, or after the pre-k year. We examine student outcomes in 5th grade and test interaction effects between NC's level of investment in public pre-k and moderating factors. Our main sample includes the population of children born in North Carolina between 1987 and 2005 who later attended a public school in that state, had valid achievement data in 5th grade, and could be matched by administrative record review (n = 1,207,576; 58% White non-Hispanic, 29% Black non-Hispanic, 7% Hispanic, 6% multiracial and Other race/ethnicity). Analyses were based on a natural experiment leveraging variation in county-level funding for NC Pre-K across NC counties during each of the years the state scaled up the program. Exposure to NC Pre-K funding was defined as the per-4-year-old-child state allocation of funds to a county in a year. Regression models included child-level and county-level covariates and county and year fixed effects. Estimates indicate that a child's exposure to higher NC Pre-K funding was positively associated with that child's academic achievement 6 years later. We found no effect on special education placement or grade retention. NC Pre-K funding effects on achievement were positive for all subgroups tested, and statistically significant for most. However, they were larger for children exposed to more disadvantaged environments either before or after the pre-k experience, consistent with a compensatory model where pre-k provides a buffer against the adverse effects of prior negative environmental experiences and protection against the effects of future adverse experiences. In addition, the effect of NC Pre-K funding on achievement remained positive across most environments, supporting an additive effects model. In contrast, few findings supported a dynamic complementarity model. Instrumental variables analyses incorporating a child's NC Pre-K enrollment status indicate that program attendance increased average 5th grade achievement by approximately 20% of a standard deviation, and impacts were largest for children who were Hispanic or whose mothers had less than a high school education. Implications for the future of pre-k scale-up and developmental theory are discussed.

Long-term effects of early childhood programs through eighth grade: Do the effects fade out or grow?

Support for policies to improve early childhood educational development and reduce disparities grew rapidly this century but recently has wavered because of findings that program effects might fade out prematurely. Two programs implemented at scale in North Carolina (Smart Start and More at Four) have been associated with academic success early in elementary school, but it is not known whether these effects fade out or are sustained in middle school. Smart Start provides state funding to support high-quality early childcare in local communities, and More at Four provides state-funded slots for a year of credentialed pre-kindergarten. Funds were allocated for each program at varying rates across counties and years. We used this variation to estimate the long-term impact of each program through eighth grade, by measuring the association between state funding allocations to each program, in each of 100 counties over each of 13 consecutive years, and later student performance. Students were matched to funding levels provided to their home county in their early childhood years and then followed through eighth grade. Analyses using county- and year-fixed-effects regression models with individualand school-level covariates conducted on nearly 900,000 middle school students indicate significant positive impacts of funding for each program on reading and math test scores and reductions in special education placement and grade retention. These impacts do not fade out and seem instead to grow (for More at Four) as students progress through middle school. Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds experience particularly large benefits from the More at Four Program.

Impact of North Carolina's Early Childhood Programs and Policies on Educational Outcomes in Elementary School.

North Carolina's Smart Start and More at Four (MAF) early childhood programs were evaluated through the end of elementary school (age 11) by estimating the impact of state funding allocations to programs in each of 100 counties across 13 consecutive years on outcomes for all children in each county-year group (n = 1,004,571; 49% female; 61% non-Latinx White, 30% African American, 4% Latinx, 5% other). Student-level regression models with county and year fixed effects indicated significant positive impacts of each program on reading and math test scores and reductions in special education and grade retention in each grade. Effect sizes grew or held steady across years. Positive effects held for both high- and low-poverty families, suggesting spillover of effects to nonparticipating peers.

Multiple Teacher Ratings: An evaluation of measurement strategies.

This study addresses the questions that arise when collecting, describing, and analyzing information from multiple informants regarding attributes of individual students. Using data from the Fast Track study, we evaluate alternative measurement strategies for using multiple teacher ratings of student adjustment to middle school among a sample of 326 Grade-6 pupils. One goal of the study was to compare the advantages of three measurement strategies using multiple and single informants in terms of their correlation with contemporaneous measures of behavior and academic achievement. Comparisons of residual variance using an aggregated rating, the rating from an "optimal informant," and a score selected at random from the response set, indicate that aggregation provides the highest criterion-related validity. As part of these analyses, we explore the significance of inter-rater concordance, measured in terms of the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results indicate that for some aggregated scores, reliability can significantly limit their interpretability. The second main goal of the study was to evaluate the effects of variation in die number of teacher ratings on residual variance estimates for aggregate measures in selected behavioral domains. We conclude that the advantages of using multiple ratings are significant with a larger number of informants.