1. Fulfilling the Promise of Early Childhood Education in Florida
Steve Barnett & Karin Garver, NIEER, Rutgers University

2. National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)
National early childhood policy research center founded in 2002
Conduct independent, research-based research and provide technical assistance to inform policy
Multidisciplinary staff from education & developmental psychology to public policy and economics
Review state and city policies for comparison and consistency with “what works”

3. Promise of Early Care and Education
Early experience has broad, persistent effects
Learning, development, and health
Educational, social, and economic success
Poor early experience limits future success of many
ECE can change the course of development
Increased educational achievement and attainment
Less abuse/neglect and crime
Higher earnings, better health, longer life
Well designed ECE has high rates of return
Full day programs support parental employment
Chicago program had $10:1 return over a lifetime

4. Starting Right: Three Seminal Studies with Low-income Children
Perry: half-day preschool in public school, ages 3 & 4, small scale
One highly qualified teacher per 6 children, strong leadership
Weekly home visits with one-on-one tutoring
Abecedarian: birth to age 5 full-day, year round, small scale
Well-educated teachers, very small classes, strong leadership
Child-Parent Centers: P-3 starting at age 3 in public school, large scale
Well-educated teachers, small classes, strong leadership
Explicit coordination from preschool through third grade
Extensive parent engagement with centers
Over the last 25 years, hundreds of studies have produced evidence of the impacts of early education on learning and development. Many of these have found long-term impacts on outcomes that include: achievement test scores, rates of special education and repeating grades because of failure, completion of secondary school and post-secondary education. Long-term effects have been found for social development including reductions in classroom behavior problems, delinquency, and crime. These developmental results translate into very long improvements: increased employment and earnings, decreased dependence on public welfare, decreases in risky behaviors like teen pregnancy, smoking and drug use, and improved mental health.
These improvements in development and adult success have implications for public expenditures resulting in cost savings in education, social services, the criminal justice system, and health care. Of course, it is not just the government cost savings that are important, but the improvements in the quality of life.

5. Economic Returns in these Small Scale Studies
Program
Population
Cost per
Child
Earnings
Benefit
Full
Benefits
B/C
Total
ABC
0-5
VERY LOW SES
$83,530
$147,359 
$208,283
1.46
2.49
0-5 Heckman
VERY LOW
SES
$91,519
$70,795
$200,009
0.77
3.21
ABC/CARE
$92,570
$133,032
$636,674
1.44
7.33
PERRY
3-5
$20,854
$91,646 $
4.39
8.60
3-5 Heckman
$26,639
$78,010
$165,053
2.93
6.20
CPC
LOW SES
$9,719
$32,933
$105,294
3.39
10.83
Add contact info and/or acknoweldgements?

6. Strong Returns Require Much Higher Quality than is Typical Today
Many current public programs do not deliver the same long-term impacts
Some very small, even negative, long-term impacts
Head Start RCT found little lasting impact
TN state pre-K RCT: initial modest positive effects reverse to negative in primary grades
Quebec universal child care negative effects
Other programs have been found to have strong long-term gains and economic returns
Over the last 25 years, hundreds of studies have produced evidence of the impacts of early education on learning and development. Many of these have found long-term impacts on outcomes that include: achievement test scores, rates of special education and repeating grades because of failure, completion of secondary school and post-secondary education. Long-term effects have been found for social development including reductions in classroom behavior problems, delinquency, and crime. These developmental results translate into very long improvements: increased employment and earnings, decreased dependence on public welfare, decreases in risky behaviors like teen pregnancy, smoking and drug use, and improved mental health.
These improvements in development and adult success have implications for public expenditures resulting in cost savings in education, social services, the criminal justice system, and health care. Of course, it is not just the government cost savings that are important, but the improvements in the quality of life.

7. Summary of Research Outcomes Over Time

8. New Studies of Long-Term Effects
New Studies of Long-Term Effects of ECE
New Studies of Long-Term Effects
Nationwide—avg. public school pre-K no effects at 4th grade, higher quality (MA,MD,NC, NJ, OK) do have positive effects
AL, OK, NJ, NC have positive effects on achievement through middle school
GA 3rd grade outcomes are positive for low-income children but negative for others

9. Why is it so hard to produce strong results?
Small study outcomes not fully realistic at scale
These were best case examples
Alternatives (home & other) better than in distant past
Easier to produce results for poorest children
More importantly, everyone underinvests
Parents underinvest
Governments underinvest, favor quantity over quality
Underinvestment causes 2 major problems
Design failure –programs not designed based on goals
Implementation failure—not implemented as intended
Result is highly variable outcomes and economic returns

10. TO PRODUCE LARGE & PERSISTENT GAINS
What Does Research Say Increases Outcomes?
TO PRODUCE LARGE & PERSISTENT GAINS
Big, persistent change in early experience
Intentional teaching one-on-one and in small group
Deep learning in unconstrained domains
Language
Mathematics
Character and social behavior (also creativity, dispositions toward learning?)

11. NJ PRE-K Designed to Succeed
Universal, voluntary
High expectations
Adequate funding
Strong teachers
Small classes
Ages 3 & 4 (2 years)
Full day
Public-private provider partnership
Continuous improve- ment system (GPS)

12. Transformation of Quality in NJ Pre-K (Classroom Ratings)
ADD

13. NJ Pre-K Effects on Achievement Grades 4 and 5 (in Standard Deviations)

14. NJ Pre-K Effects on Retention & Special Education at Grade 5

15. WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA?

16. Florida’s VPK Program
Mixed delivery open to all 4-yr-old children statewide
Enrollment of 4-year-olds has hovered between 75%-80% since 2011
Adjusted for inflation, state spending for VPK declined steadily since , losing 30% of its value
VPK meets 2 of NIEER’s 10 Quality Standards Benchmarks
300-hour summer program or 540-hour school year program

17. FL’s Preschool Per Child Spending is Declining

18. Disparity between Florida K-12 and VPK Funding

19. Florida VPK 4 year-old Enrollment and Funding 2018 Ratings
State Funding
State
Ranking
Percent
District of Columbia 1
85%
Florida 2
77%
Vermont 3
76%
Oklahoma 4
74%
Wisconsin 5
68%
West Virginia 6
67%
Iowa 7
65%
Georgia 8
61%
New York 9
51%
Texas 10
49%
State
Ranking
Per Pupil
District of Columbia 1
$17,545
New Jersey 2
$13,018
Alaska 3
$10,159
Oregon 4
$9,658
Washington 5
$8,854
Montana 6
$8,411
Pennsylvania 7
$7,865
California 8
$7,655
Connecticut 9
$7,612
Delaware 10
$7,277
National Average
$5,175
Florida
41 of 45
$2,177

20. Florida VPK Meets 2 of 10 Quality Benchmarks (but 6 more in are easy reach)
Policy Benchmark
FL VPK Policies
Benchmark Met?
Early Learning & Development Standards
Comprehensive, aligned, culturally sensitive, supported √
Strong Curriculum & Implementation Supports
Approval process but lacks fidelity support
Teacher BA
CDA for School Year, BA for Summer
Specialized ECE Knowledge
Not met for Summer program
Assistant Teacher ECE Credential
(CDA or equivalent)
None
On-going PD (15 hours T & Asst, PD plans and coaching)
10 hours for teachers, PD plans only for teachers on probation
Class size < 20
Maximum 20 or 12
Adult/child Ratio 1:10
1:11 or 2:12-20
Screening & Referral
Vision, hearing, health only in licensed child care and public school
Continuous program improvement system

21. Children entering kindergarten without skills needed for success according to the state
FL children not “ready for kindergarten”
46%
Children completing at least 70% of VPK program who were not “ready for kindergarten”
37%
VPK programs with fewer than 60% of children “ready for kindergarten”
43%
Florida Office of Early Learning. Annual Report

22. Limitations of FL Readiness Assessment
Provider contribution cannot be determined simply from kindergarten entry assessment
Change from pre- to post- would be better
The FL assessment looks at very narrow skills
The assessment was not designed to predict readiness and its validity is unclear at best
The cut-off for ready appears somewhat arbitrary
Seems at odds with FL NAEP scores

23. Nevertheless….
Reasonable Goals
The data can be used to build public will to invest in improvement
The state is open to using data
Data on observed quality and children’s learning are being collected
Shift focus to your system of continuous improvement—a GPS way of thinking
Better set of measures for learning and development could help long-term

24. Moving FLORIDA Forward
Reasonable Goals
Generate a vision of high quality pre-K for all children and families
Set the program standards needed to attain the vision based on proven examples
Determine the required financial investment
Develop a timeline to attain the vision
NIEER has tools that can help plan and is able to support this work

25. A NEW VISION FOR FLORIDA ECE:
THE NEXT STEP
Reasonable Goals

26. Cost of Preschool Quality & Revenue (CPQ&R)

27. Introduction to the CPQ&R
First developed by NIEER and CEELO in 2016
Excel based model to estimate the cost of implementing high-quality preschool programs
Includes default settings for “best practice” based on the 10 NIEER quality standards benchmarks
State-level research used to generate costs based on estimated “slot plan”
Illustrates cost implications for various modes of delivery (Public, Private, Head Start)
Illustrates cost implications for various combinations of quality standards (staff degree requirements, PD, staff/child ratios)
Compares current costs against projected future costs over multiple years

28. What questions does the CPQ&R answer?
How much would it cost to serve more children with current quality standards?
How much would it cost to raise quality standards in the existing program?
What are the costs of various state-specific policy proposals
Increased teacher degree requirements/compensation
Increased length of day
Continuous quality improvement system
How much funding is needed over time?

29. What data does CPQ&R provide?
This chart illustrates costs to raise dosage, reduce class size and increase teacher degree standards for a hypothetical state.

30. Unit Cost Categories in the CPQ&R
The CPQ&R contains default assumptions that vary in their contribution to total cost and degree to which they are supported by external data
Tuition Support
Coaching
Training for Professional Development
Classroom Observations [for CQIS]
Curriculum
Screening
NIEER Quality Standards and Benchmarks
State-level data is preloaded into the model wherever possible, but can still be further customized.
State Administration [for Monitoring & Oversight]
Capacity Building
External Technical Assistance and Program Evaluation
State Level Infrastructure & Supports
Salaries and Wages
Mandatory Benefits
Additional Benefits
Substitutes
Child Meals
Child Transportation
Equipment & Supplies
Facility
Child Assessments
Classroom Materials [& Furnishings]
Provider-Level Direct & Indirect Services
Note: the default model also includes cost assumptions expressed in total dollars (not unit costs to be multiplied by volumes), and in these cases the default is set to $0. In addition, an “Other” category is defined for certain non-zero default assumptions, such as the inflation rate, that are not readily assigned to one of the categories above.

31. What’s Important to Florida?
Visioning for VPK
What’s Important to Florida?

32. Visioning Exercise: Part 1
A successful cost model requires a clear vision
Without worrying about costs/funding/politics, what would the ideal VPK program look like in Florida 5 years from now?
(Take 5-10 minutes to generate a list of your thoughts and ideas.)

33. Visioning Exercise: Part 2
At your table, discuss the ideas on your list and generate a group list of ideal program features. (Take minutes to discuss and have someone record your overall list.)

34. Visioning Exercise: Part 3
One table at a time, report out on your list. We’ll generate one common list for the whole group.
What are the most common ideas? Are “non-negotiables” emerging?
Where do our visions differ?

35. Acknowledging the Challenges
Program changes are likely to meet some challenges along the way.
Looking at the comprehensive list of preschool program features, what are the anticipated challenges?
Logistical
Political
Financial

36. Where do we go from here, and how can NIEER help?
Next Steps
Where do we go from here, and how can NIEER help?