1. Monthly Strategy Call #1: Early Childhood Education
January 26, 2015
Steve Barnett, Ph.D., NIEER
Bob Pianta, Ph.D., Curry School of Education, UVA

2. Pre-K: what do we know from research about public programs?
Steve Barnett, PhD

3. Potential Gains from Pre-K Investments
Educational , Social and Economic Success
Achievement test scores
Special education and grade repetition
High school graduation
Behavior problems, delinquency, and crime
Employment, earnings, and welfare dependency
Smoking, drug use, and even health
Decreased Costs to Government
Schooling costs
Social services costs
Crime costs
Health care costs (teen pregnancy and smoking)

4. What does all the evidence say about lasting effects
What does all the evidence say about lasting effects? (123 studies since 1960)

5. What do we learn from reviewing all the evidence?
Preschool has positive effects that shrink after children enter school but do not disappear
Cognitive gains can be large enough to significantly reduce the achievement gap, but gains not limited to the poor
Programs have bigger effects with:
More emphasis on good intentional teaching
Individualization & small groups
Robust long-term gains require large short-term gains
Focus on self-regulation & socialization as well as academics to influence school success, delinquency & crime, and adult productivity
Effective preschool can be scaled up.
Economic pay-off depends on intensive HQ preschool with broad goals and outcomes beyond test score gains

6. Few children receive quality pre-K but this varies greatly by region because of policies

7. NJ Example : Universal High Quality In 31 High Poverty Districts
High standards for learning and teaching
Good teachers and small classes
Continuous improvement system with coaching
Adequate funding with public school salaries
6 hour educational day, 180-day program, plus extended day/full year wrap around
Leading edge of systemic education reform
All 3 and 4 yr. olds in 31 school systems
Public-private system with 60% private providers

8. Why a continuous improvement process is needed
Although resources matter, quality depends on action
Requires aligned standards and assessments of practice with feedback from experts
Takes place at multiple levels with multiple measures
Self assessment
External assessment
Indicators of child well-being as well as practice

9. These policies transformed quality

10. NJ Effects on Achievement Grades 4 and 5

11. NJ Effects on Retention & Special Education at Grade 5

12. Takeaway Lessons Gains from HQ pre-K persist and have high value.
Social-emotional and self-regulation gains are as important as test score gains.
Persistent gains require large initial effects, and quality often is too low to produce large effects.
Quality depends on high standards, adequate, stable funding, and a continuous improvement system.
Policy can transform quality and HQ effective public pre-K can be provided on a large scale

13. Public Pre-k: Perspectives on effective programs and policy
Robert C. Pianta
Dean, Curry School of Education
Founding Director, Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning

14. The Premise: Early Childhood Education
Every poor child has access to a highly effective preschool program before they enter Kindergarten.
Ingredients: Effective curriculum; high-quality teacher-child interactions; trained workforce; K readiness assessment.
Sufficient intensity to close gaps.
Scale: Statewide infrastructure, regulation, and support for local implementation of effective models

15. Early Childhood—Access
Staff
Curriculum
Funding
Access
Workforce
Training
Workforce
Supply
Assessments,
Accountability
Fragmented, idiosyncratic implementation

16. Features of program quality that matter
Debate has shifted to focus on what’s happening in classrooms: Quality that matters for children’s learning
Teacher-child interactions
Curriculum
Workforce development

17. Understanding the CLASS Framework: Overview
Quality of teacher-child interactions
What to Say and Do
Explain that this graph shows how much the effectiveness of interactions varies.
Explain to teachers that based on CLASS data collected from observing several thousand pre-k-3rd classrooms throughout the country, researchers know that
Children tend to experience all, but mostly moderate to high, levels of effective interactions for Emotional Support and Classroom Organization.
Most children attend pre-k-3rd grade classrooms characterized by low levels of instructional support.

18. Interactions and children’s PK development
Emotional Support
Instructional Support
ECERS-R Total
Structural
Receptive Language 
Expressive Language
Rhyming
Letter Naming
Math Skills
Social Competence
Behavior Problems
Changes in children’s development from beginning to end of preschool Mashburn, et al. (in press)
As you can see, what we found in these preschool classrooms was that the CLASS Instructional dimensions in particular were associated with children’s language learning (can go through more specifics).
Please note that this analysis used a previous grouping of CLASS dimensions so ES contained PC, NC-r, TS, OC-r, and BM, and IS contained PD, ILF, CD, and FDK

19. Quality rating and improvement systems
Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) are a policy vehicle to measure, invest in, and improve quality. Many indicators used.
When QRIS include observations of interactions, they predict children’s readiness skills. Otherwise not.

20. Improving interactions and their value
Link supports to teachers to their interactions with children – Building quality
CLASS – specific definitions of interactions – a target
Video Library – analysis of others’ interactions
Coaching – ongoing analysis/feedback on own interactions (MyTeachingPartner, or MTP)
Course – knowledge and analytic skills
All tested in experiments and effective for improving quality (interactions) and learning

21. Course on interactions improves teaching*

22. Effects of MTP coaching in PK (3 studies)
Teachers with MTP coaches
More sensitive in interactions with students
Increased students’ engagement in instruction
Improved language stimulation techniques
High-poverty classrooms benefit a great deal
Early career teachers benefit even more
Children with MTP teachers
Greater gains in tests of early literacy
Lower levels of problem behavior
Higher levels of expressive language
Better self-regulation and memory skills
TALKING POINTS:
Here are more of the findings of the MTP Professional Development Study. 22 22 22 22

23. Elements of Effective Pre-K Programs Definition
Focus on quality: Teacher-student interactions
Observing, measuring, and training teachers on interactions that foster learning.
Curriculum and standards
Research-based, developmentally appropriate curricula in alignment with clear learning goals.
Professional development
Continuous feedback on teacher-child interactions with effective curricula.
Full-day enrollment
Full-day programs (6 hours minimum) for children who are at risk for school failure.
Adult-child ratios
Maximum ratios of 1 teacher to every 10 students. Teacher-aides present.
Credentials and wages
B.A. and Early Learning Credential; competitive wages to retain high-quality teachers.
Using data and measurement to drive instruction
Centralized data reporting systems. Frequent and direct measurement of children’s progress and teacher behaviors.
Political leadership and support
A precondition to any successful statewide program; elected officials must provide policy and funding support to ensure long-term positive outcomes.

24. Early Childhood—Impact
Staff
Curriculum
Funding
Access
Workforce
Training
Workforce
Supply
Assessments,
Accountability
Integrated, effective, scalable implementation

25. Questions and Discussion

26. Reminders Next monthly call: 3rd Grade Reading, 2/23 @ 2PM
In-State Visits: Scheduling in Process
Don’t forget to complete your Session 1 Evaluation if you haven’t already!