DOI: 10.3886/icpsr34942.v1
title: State of Preschool Yearbook: State-Funded Pre-K Program Data, 2011-2012 School Year
title: Version 1

description: The State of Preschool Yearbook is annual review of access to, quality standards in, and resources devoted to state-funded preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-old children in the 54 programs in 40 states and the District of Columbia providing such programs, based on a survey of administrators of state-funded preschool programs. This edition of data covers the 2011-2012 school year, and accompanies the 2012 State of Preschool Yearbook.
description: The <strong>State Preschool Yearbook</strong> is an annual publication that has tracked the funding, access, and policies of state-funded preschool programs since the 2001-2002 school year. The Yearbook seeks to improve the public's knowledge and understanding of state efforts to expand the availability of high quality education to young children in the 21st century. The data for this report should serve as a resource for policymakers, advocates, and researchers to make more informed decisions as state-funded preschool education moves forward to another decade of progress.
description: The data in this report were collected primarily through surveys of state preschool administrators and focus on the 2011-2012 school year. During July of 2012, links to a Web-based survey were sent to administrators of the state-funded
prekindergarten initiatives covered in the National Institute for Early Education Research's (NIEER) 2011 State Preschool Yearbook. The research team also checked with other sources to determine whether any comparable new initiatives had been started since the 2010-2011 school year, or whether any initiatives were omitted in the previous report. All initiatives included in the current report meet the criteria outlined by NIEER, which defines state preschool education programs as initiatives that are funded and directed by the state to support group learning experiences for preschool-age children, usually ages three and four.Two new initiatives are covered in the 2012 report, Arizona's First Things First Prekindergarten Scholarship Program and Massachusett's Preschool Child Care Enrichment Quality (PSCCE) Add-On Initiative. The survey included yes or no questions, questions that asked state administrators to select which of several choices best described their program, and open-ended questions. Where data were already available in the 2011 State Preschool Yearbook the research team provided the answer from the previous report and asked the administrators to verify that the information was still accurate for the 2011-2012 program year.Total federal, state, and local expenditures on K-12 education in the 2010-2011 school year were calculated by NIEER
based on data from the <em>National Education Association's report, Rankings and Estimates: Rankings of the States 2012 and Estimates of School Statistics 2013</em>. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Head Start Bureau of the United States Department of Health and Human Services were the sources of data on federal Head Start spending and enrollment. In addition, some data were obtained through surveys administered to the directors of Head Start State Collaboration Offices and through the Head Start Program Information Reports (PIR) for the 2011-2012 program year.
description: The data consists largely of survey response variables which pertain to questions on access, operating schedule, child eligibility and reassessment, program standards, statewide early learning standards, personnel, resources, initiative funding, program monitoring and evaluations, and important changes to the program since the last survey.
description: Response Rates: 100 percent
description: An administrator from each state-funded prekindergarten program in the United States responded to the survey sent from the research team. The sample consists of the entire universe of programs.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: State of Preschool Yearbook: State-Funded Pre-K Program Data, 2011-2012 School Year
description: All state-funded pre-K programs during the 2011-2012 school year. Smallest Geographic Unit: state
description: mixed mode; web-based surveyAdditional information for this study is available at the Web site for the National Institute For Early Education Research.Users should note that due to limitations in SAS, Stata, and SPSS, variables containing open-ended/qualitative data (greater than 244 characters) are available in Microsoft Excel format only.