State Prekindergarten Effects on Early Learning at Kindergarten Entry - An Analysis of Eight State Programs

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Cipher

State-funded prekindergarten (preK) programs are increasingly widespread, yet their learning impacts vary across states and program designs. This regression discontinuity analysis estimates effects of eight state-funded preK programs in Arkansas, California, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia on children’s learning at kindergarten entry. Weighted instrumental-variable results show effect sizes of 0.24 for language, 0.44 for math, and 1.10 for emergent literacy, with domain differences suggesting emphasis beyond basic literacy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Study scope and questions

Methods and design

Regression discontinuity framework

Findings

Weighted effect sizes across domains and states

Implications

Recommendations for evaluation

AERA Open April-June 2018, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 1–16 DOI: 10. 1177/2332858418766291 © The Author(s) 2018. [http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) State Prekindergarten Effects on Early Learning at Kindergarten Entry: An Analysis of Eight State Programs W. Steven Barnett Kwanghee Jung Allison Friedman-Krauss Ellen C. Frede Milagros Nores National Institute for Early Education Research Rutgers University Jason T. Hustedt University of Delaware Carollee Howes University of California, Los Angeles Marijata Daniel-Echols Michigan Public Health Institute State-funded prekindergarten (preK) programs are increasingly common across the country. This study estimated the effects of eight state-funded preK programs (Arkansas, California, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia) on children’s learning using a regression discontinuity design. These programs vary with respect to the population served, program design, and context. Weighted average effect sizes from instrumental variables analyses across these states are 0.24 for language (vocabulary), 0.44 for math, and 1.10 for emergent literacy. Differences in effect sizes by domain suggest that preK programs should attend more to enhancing learning beyond simple literacy skills. State preK programs appear to differ in their effects. We offer recommendations for more rigorous, regular evaluation. Keywords: state-funded prekindergarten, preK, preschool, regression discontinuity State-funded prekindergarten (preK) programs are now established in 43 states and the District of Columbia (Barnett et al., 2017) that are home to more than 96% of the nation’s 3-and 4-year-olds. A primary goal of these state-funded preK programs is enhancing the learning and development of young children to better prepare them for school success. Rigorous studies have found that high-quality preK education programs can improve children’s learning and development in both the short and long term, but public preK programs have on average performed less well than researcher-designed model programs (Camilli, Vargas, Ryan, & Barnett, 2010; Duncan & Magnuson, 2013) . The extent to which today’s state preK programs produce the types and magnitudes of effects associated with persistent academic improvements in smaller-scale studies remains unclear (Bailey, Duncan, Odgers, & Yu, 2017) . This study seeks to expand knowledge about contemporary public preK by addressing four questions: What are the impacts of eight diverse state-funded preK programs on language, literacy, and mathematics? To what extent do effects vary across these outcomes and states? More tentatively, we ask if patterns across these states suggest any explanations for the observed variations. Finally, what practical advice for future research and evaluation can we offer based on an assessment of the strengthsand weaknesses in this study? Although our study examines only effects at kindergarten entry, these effects have some relevance for those concerned with longer-term outcomes. Some studies indicate that larger initial gains predict larger long-term gains, and initial gains for some skills may be more strongly associated with persistent gains (Bailey et al., 2017; Barnett & Frede, 2017; Hill, Gormley, & Adelstein, 2015). Over the past 15 years, state-funded preK programs have more than doubled in size to enroll about 1.5 million children. Nearly one third of the nation’s 4-year-olds enroll in these programs, which primarily serve children at age 4 (Barnett et al., 2017) . Across states, programs vary greatly with respect to funding, eligibility criteria, and virtually every other program feature that can be regulated. The result is a wide range of structural (e.g., teacher Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([http://www.creativ

FAQs

What research design is used to estimate the effects of state preK programs?

The study uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate impacts of eight state-funded preK programs on children’s learning at kindergarten entry.

What are the main effect sizes reported across learning domains?

Weighted average effect sizes are 0.24 for language (vocabulary), 0.44 for math, and 1.10 for emergent literacy.

Why do the authors recommend more rigorous evaluation?

Because state preK programs appear to differ in their effects and domain-specific differences suggest the need to refine how evaluation is conducted and how recommendations are developed for future research.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Cipher