Child Care & Early Learning Research, Studies, Articles and Resources

Starting out right: pre-k and kindergarten
Author: Center for Public Education
What’s the best early childhood education combination communities can provide? Until now, research hasn’t had an answer. Although there is a wealth of research on pre-k and on kindergarten, they have been examined mainly in isolation. That research has shown that both high-quality pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten can have significant, often lasting, benefits for children. Therefore, students would benefit most from attending high-quality prekindergarten, and then going on to full-day kindergarten. However, these particular programs are not necessarily required or paid for by many states. Cash-strapped states and districts around the country are being forced to choose how to best spend their dollars, including allocations to publicly-funded pre-k and kindergarten that are both best for students and feasible within current budgets.

Transforming Public Education: Pathway to a Pre-K-12 Future
Author: Pew Center on the States
Overview: As Pew completes its 10-year commitment to the Pre-K Now campaign, our final report (PDF) challenges the nation’s policy makers to transform public education by moving away from our current K-12 system. The future of public education is Pre-K-12. State investment in pre-k programs has more than doubled in the past decade, but states have yet to maximize the impact of high-quality pre-k on children’s academic performances. Bridging early education and school reform will strengthen the return on investment from the billions of public and private dollars that are being spent each year on increasing academic achievement.

The State of America's Children 2011
Author: Children's Defense Fund
Overview: CDF’s new report The State of America's Children 2011 finds children have fallen further behind in many of the leading indicators over the past year as the country slowly climbs out of the recession. This is a comprehensive compilation and analysis of the most recent and reliable national and state-by-state data on population, poverty, family structure, family income, health, nutrition, early childhood development, education, child welfare, juvenile justice, and gun violence.

The Head Start Impact Study - January 2010
Source: U.S. Health and Human Services
Study Goals
1) Determine the impact of Head Start on: children’s school readiness, and parental practices that support children’s development.
2) Determine under what circumstances Head Start achieves its greatest impact and for which children.
Read the PDF
Read economist Tim Bartik's blog about the study
Read Cornelia Grumman's First Five Years blog about the study
Read the NIEER blog about the study

Preschool As a School Turnaround Strategy
Source: Pew Center on the States - June 2011
Excerpt: Across the nation, state and local school systems, recognizing the strong and growing evidence of pre-kindergarten’s effectiveness in closing achievement gaps and improving school performance,1 are implementing early learning programs as part of their education reform efforts. In low-performing districts, pre-k has emerged as a promising turnaround strategy, reaching children before they become low-achieving middle and high school students. As members of Congress discuss reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), they can look to these initiatives to see how strategic use of limited funds for proven early education programs can raise student achievement, and to identify opportunities for smart federal investment.

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS:  PARALLELS BETWEEN INFANT-TODDLER DEVELOPMENT AND THE PUBLIC POLICY PROCESS
Working with infants, toddlers and their families is all about relationships. We know from scientific research that every domain of development is impacted by nurturing, caring relationships in early childhood. “Babies are born with a drive to relate to and connect with others, and they continue to develop the social skills necessary to form strong, healthy relationships throughout their lives.