Prekindergarten: Four Selected States Expanded Access by Relying on Schools and Existing Providers of Early Education and Care to Provide Services
Released: 2004-09-09T00:00:00

Letter

Background

The growth in state prekindergarten programs has occurred for various reasons, but three frequently cited reasons are (1) evidence of the importance of early childhood to later development, (2) the high rate of labor force participation by mothers of young children, and (3) increased concern over school readiness and subsequent achievement. Much has been discovered about children’s ability to learn more at an earlier age than previously believed. The early childhood years are commonly portrayed as formative. Between the first day of life and the first day of kindergarten, development proceeds at a pace exceeding that of any subsequent stage of life. Children from birth to age five engage in making sense of the world on many levels: language, human interactions, counting and quantification, spatial reasoning, physical causality, problem solving, and categorization.

Since the 1960s, the percentage of women in the labor force has increased dramatically. In 1960, about 36 percent of women participated in the labor force, and by 2000 this figure had increased to 58 percent. Moreover, in 2003, about 69 percent of women with children aged three to five (but none younger) were in the labor force. This high rate of participation of women in the labor force has resulted in more children enrolled in preschool programs of varying quality and pressure being placed on schools to provide before- and after-school programs.

To improve educational achievement for all children and reduce failure in lower grades, many states and school districts are placing a greater emphasis on the school readiness of younger children. For nearly a quarter century, many states have developed or expanded their investment in prekindergarten programs to increase the likelihood of children’s success in school. Prior to 1970 only 7 states funded preschool programs, and by 1988, 28 states had programs and total spending was $190 million; such programs generally targeted economically and educationally disadvantaged children. While most state-sponsored prekindergarten programs continue to serve such children, a few states are in the process of expanding their programs to include all four-year-olds, regardless of family income. According to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), 40 states (and Washington, D.C.) had some form of state-sponsored prekindergarten program in the 2001-02 school year and enrolled over 700,000 children, mostly four-year-olds. While states spent more than $2.4 billion for prekindergarten during the 2001-02 school year, 10 states accounted for over 80 percent of this amount.

Generally, prekindergarten programs aimed to serve four-year-olds, but according to NIEER estimates, most states served less than one-fifth of all their four-year-olds (see fig. 1). NIEER estimated that about 80 percent of children served by state prekindergarten programs were four-year-olds. During the 2001-02 school year, only two states (Georgia and Oklahoma) enrolled more than 50 percent of their four-year-olds in a state-sponsored prekindergarten program. Ten states (Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming) had not initiated prekindergarten programs.

The NIEER study also reported on characteristics describing the quality of states’ prekindergarten programs. Table 1 provides information on NIEER’s findings related to certain program characteristics, benchmarks, and the number of state programs meeting the benchmarks that NIEER associated with quality prekindergarten programs.

Among the 10 largest state prekindergarten programs, most met the benchmarks for class size, family support services, staff-child ratio, and teacher qualifications, and they were equally divided with respect to comprehensive curriculum standards.

State-sponsored prekindergarten programs are expanding alongside existing programs for young children, including Head Start, Title I, and private child care programs. Head Start is a targeted program that mostly serves children from low-income families. Head Start, administered at the federal level by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is implemented in local communities through grantees. These grantees include community action agencies, school systems, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, other government agencies, and tribal governments or associations. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that Head Start served just over 900,000 children nationwide during the 2003 fiscal year, and most were aged three and four; Head Start was funded at about $6.7 billion, or about $7,366 per child.

In addition to administering Head Start, the federal government also provides some limited support for early education programs through Title I. Administered by the Department of Education (Education), Title I is the single largest federal investment for elementary and secondary education. Its primary purpose is to help local education agencies and schools improve the teaching and learning of children who are failing, or are most at risk of failing, to meet challenging academic standards. In support of that goal, Education reported that Title I was funded at about $11.7 billion during the 2003 fiscal year. Nearly 15 million students were supported by Title I funds, and of these, about 2 percent (an estimated 313,000) were enrolled in prekindergarten programs during the 1999-2000 school year.

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the principal federal program that supports child care for low-income families. CCDF is administered by HHS, and each state receives an annual allocation that is used to subsidize the child care expenses of low-income families with children generally under age 13. CCDF subsidies can be used to obtain child care from various types of providers, including child care centers and family homes. In fiscal year 2002, CCDF was appropriated nearly $5 billion, and HHS reported that about 1.8 million children received subsidies in an average month. As a condition of receiving CCDF funds, states must conduct biennial surveys of child care providers, which are considered by states when establishing reimbursement rates for providers serving subsidized children. In addition to information regarding the fees charged by providers for child care services, such surveys may provide states with information about the type of child care they provide, qualifications of the staff, the age groups of the children they serve, and where they are located.

Four Selected States Varied In the Design and Funding of their Expanded Prekindergarten Programs

The four states we visited varied in the design features and funding of their prekindergarten programs. Programs shared similar features such as voluntary enrollment of children at no direct cost to their parents, but differed in others. In addition, all five state programs permitted collaboration with community-based providers. States varied in features such as the teacher requirements for their prekindergarten programs. States and school districts also differed in the degree and type of collaborations they established with community-based agencies. Finally, while states relied primarily on state resources, they reported some differences in funding mechanisms and per child funding levels.

Selected States Designed Expanded Prekindergarten Programs to Enroll Children Voluntarily at No Direct Cost to Parents, but Differed in Geographic Breadth and Other Key Features

In the four states visited—Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma—we found some similarities in prekindergarten programs. Over the last few years, all four states had expanded their state-sponsored prekindergarten programs and, as reported by NIEER in February 2004, were among only nine states and Washington, D.C., that provided prekindergarten services to more than 20 percent of their four-year-olds. All four states’ prekindergarten programs were provided at no direct cost to parents—regardless of family income—and were offered on a voluntary basis; children’s enrollment was not mandatory. In addition, each program emphasized preparation for school and incorporated the delivery of prekindergarten services by community-based organizations as well as schools. None of the states required that all providers offer transportation services, although some providers did, and one state offered reimbursement for some children when this occurred. Figure 2 shows the estimated number of age-eligible children in the state, and the number of age-eligible children participating in prekindergarten and Head Start programs in the four states we visited.

The states we visited differed in the extent of geographic coverage and participation in prekindergarten programs. Three of the four states— Georgia, New York, and Oklahoma—aimed to provide prekindergarten programs to all four-year-olds in the state whose parents wanted them to attend. While none of these states provided prekindergarten to all four- year-olds, Oklahoma and Georgia had the most widespread programs. During the 2003-04 school year, Oklahoma provided prekindergarten in 509 of its 541 school districts to about 63 percent of its four-year-olds; Georgia provided prekindergarten in all of its 181 school districts and to about 55 percent of its four-year-olds. New York initially implemented much of its universal prekindergarten program in school districts located in the five largest cities in the state—Buffalo, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers. During the 2003-04 school year, about 80 percent of the participating children attended prekindergarten in one of these five cities. Overall, New York’s prekindergarten program was offered in 190 of its 680 school districts. In New Jersey’s Abbott program, the state was court ordered to provide prekindergarten to all three- and four-year-olds who resided in the state’s 30 highest-poverty school districts. In addition, 102 non-Abbott early childhood program aid (ECPA) school districts in high-poverty areas received funds for prekindergarten programs. Combined, these two programs provided prekindergarten in 132 of 539 (24 percent) school districts in New Jersey. Table 2 provides information on the extent of geographic coverage and percentage of age-eligible children participating in prekindergarten programs in the four states we visited.

The state-sponsored prekindergarten programs also differed in some of their key design features. For example, the length of the program, in terms of hours per day, ranged from 2.5 hours to 6.5 hours per day among the four states. Full-day prekindergarten was provided in Georgia and New Jersey’s Abbott prekindergarten programs. The other three prekindergarten programs—New Jersey’s non-Abbott ECPA, New York, and Oklahoma—allowed school districts to determine whether to offer full-day or half-day programs.

The states also varied in their requirements for lead teachers, and two of the five state programs (New Jersey’s Abbott and Oklahoma) required teachers to be certified in early childhood education. In New Jersey’s non-Abbott ECPA program, prekindergarten teachers could also hold certification in elementary education. Beginning with the 2004-05 school year, New York’s state program required that all prekindergarten teachers be certified, but certification could be in an area other than early childhood education. In Georgia, lead teachers were required to hold at least a technical diploma or degree, associate’s degree, or Montessori diploma. However, most lead teachers had at least a four-year-college degree. As of May 2004, the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning reported that about 58 percent of its prekindergarten teachers were certified in early childhood or elementary education and 21 percent held four-year education-related or other degrees with some additional training in early childhood education or development. Combined, about 79 percent of the lead teachers in Georgia had at least a four-year education- related college degree.

States and school districts established collaborations with community- based organizations differently and often relied on them extensively to provide prekindergarten services to children. For example, Georgia had a centralized program and the state’s Department of Early Care and Learning was directly responsible for establishing collaborations with community-based organizations such as child care centers and U.S. military bases. In contrast, in the other three states we visited, local school districts had responsibility for establishing collaborations. In New York, the state required that school districts use at least 10 percent of their universal prekindergarten grant funds to serve children in community- based organizations, but statewide over 60 percent of four-year-olds were participating in community-based prekindergarten programs during the 2002-03 school year. The extent of collaborations varied between the two prekindergarten programs in New Jersey during the 2003-04 school year. In the Abbott school districts, the state was ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court to provide full-day prekindergarten for all three- and four- year-olds; over 70 percent of these children were served by community- based providers. In contrast, in New Jersey’s non-Abbott ECPA school districts, only about 11 percent of the children received prekindergarten from community-based providers. While state officials in Oklahoma were supportive of collaborations, local school district officials determined the role of community-based providers in their prekindergarten programs. In Oklahoma, most children were enrolled in prekindergarten programs in public school buildings; the state did not know how many local school districts collaborated with community-based organizations or the number of children participating in them. These and other key differences in the design and implementation of state prekindergarten programs are identified in table 3.

State Funding Structure, Levels, and Stability Varied, and States Used Little Federal Funding

All four states relied primarily on state resources but differed in other aspects of funding such as amounts per child, funding methods, and the extent to which these methods and amounts provided for financially stable programs. During the 2002-03 school year, enrollments and state spending for prekindergarten services varied widely among the five state programs. Based on data we collected from the states, spending ranged from approximately $347 million for prekindergarten services in the 30 Abbott school districts in New Jersey to about $30 million for the 102 non-Abbott ECPA school districts in New Jersey. Table 4 provides information on the primary methods of program funding, estimated number of participating children, and estimated state spending among the five programs during the 2002-03 school year.

Per child expenditures for full-day and half-day prekindergarten varied across the four states we visited and were consistently less than the state’s per pupil expenditures for kindergarten through grade 12. New Jersey’s Abbott districts had the highest funding per child for full-day prekindergarten, relative to kindergarten through grade 12 funding. In the remaining states, funding for full-day prekindergarten was much less than the level of funding per child in kindergarten through grade 12. See figure 3 for comparisons of per child expenditures for prekindergarten and kindergarten through grade 12 in the four states we visited.

Apart from New Jersey’s Abbott and Georgia’s prekindergarten programs, the other state programs we examined were largely half-day. New Jersey’s non-Abbott ECPA program, New York, and Oklahoma permitted local school districts to operate half-day prekindergarten. However, these states differed in how they funded their half- and full-day programs. School districts in New Jersey’s non-Abbott ECPA program and New York received the same amount per child whether they operated half-day or full- day programs, and about 80 percent of the children attended half-day prekindergarten in each of the two programs. In Oklahoma, local school districts received about $1,743 per child (54 percent of the full-day rate), and over half of the four-year-olds participating in the state’s prekindergarten program were enrolled in half-day programs during the 2002-03 school year.

The four states varied in how they funded their state-sponsored prekindergarten programs, and officials in two states told us that the financial outlook of their programs was stable. According to two New Jersey state officials, because of the state supreme court decision and subsequent court order, New Jersey was committed to providing a quality prekindergarten program to all three- and four-year-olds who lived in the Abbott school districts. In addition, funding for both New Jersey’s Abbott and non-Abbott ECPA prekindergarten programs was part of the school funding formula. Oklahoma supported prekindergarten through the funding formula, as it did for other school grades, and state officials told us they believed that funding for the program was stable.

However, funding for prekindergarten in the other two states may be more uncertain. For example, funding levels for New York’s state-sponsored prekindergarten had increased somewhat for the past 3 years but were insufficient to allow the state to implement a universal prekindergarten program available to all four-year-olds by the 2001-02 school year as planned. During the same period, New York financed its program from general revenue funds as a line item in the budget, and in 2003, the program was targeted for elimination because of state fiscal shortfalls. While avoiding elimination, limited increases in funding have restricted the state’s ability to expand the program over the past several years. Most eligible districts participated in the program. However, about two-thirds of the school districts were not eligible for the state-sponsored prekindergarten program during the 2002-03 school year.

Georgia has historically relied on the state lottery to fund its prekindergarten program. When the lottery was initially created, its proceeds were set aside for three programs, including state-sponsored prekindergarten. Currently, lottery funds are used to support prekindergarten and a program to provide academic scholarships for eligible high school graduates. However, over time, a greater percentage of the lottery funds has been designated for the college scholarship program than for prekindergarten. Additionally, lotteries recently began in two neighboring states, and officials we interviewed were concerned that Georgia’s lottery proceeds may level off. State officials told us that lottery funds may be insufficient to entirely support the prekindergarten program by 2007, and the state has begun to look at stop gap measures to protect lottery funding if needed in the future.

The four states reported using small amounts of federal funds to support their prekindergarten programs; these amounts were generally small relative to state funding levels. For example, two states—Georgia and Oklahoma—used some prekindergarten monies to meet their CCDF matching or maintenance-of-effort requirements. In fiscal year 2002, Georgia used about $2.4 million in lottery funds for CCDF state matching and maintenance-of-effort, which represented about 1 percent of the state funding for prekindergarten. These funds were used for extended day (before- and after-school) for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) eligible children participating in prekindergarten. Oklahoma used about $2.1 million of its prekindergarten funds to meet CCDF maintenance-of-effort requirements, which represented about 3 percent of the state funding for prekindergarten. In fiscal year 2002, New York transferred $61.3 million from the TANF program to the state prekindergarten program, but this was done for only one year. None of the other states used TANF funds to support the expansion of their prekindergarten programs. While state officials told us that Title I, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and Head Start program funds were also used at the local level to support prekindergarten, they did not know the exact amounts from these other federal sources.

Some Program Features Had Potential Implications for Children’s Participation and Other Early Childhood Programs

Some prekindergarten design features had implications for children’s participation and early childhood programs in the four states we visited. For example, both local officials and providers told us that transportation and program hours may have affected access to prekindergarten programs for children of low-income and working families. State and local officials, along with community-based providers and Head Start grantees, told us that collaborations were beneficial to their programs and had allowed rapid expansion of state prekindergarten. However, some challenges remained, such as the efforts needed to establish and maintain effective collaborations. Finally, few empirical data were available to quantify the effect of expanding state prekindergarten programs on the availability and prices for child care, and the anecdotal evidence we collected was mixed.

Transportation and Program Hours May Have Implications for Participation

Program features, which varied across states and school districts, may have affected participation, particularly for children of low-income and working families. None of the four states required prekindergarten providers to transport all participating children. Officials in some school districts told us that the lack of transportation may have decreased the participation of children from low-income and working families, and 10 of the 12 school districts we visited did not provide transportation to and from prekindergarten for all participating children. Some school district officials primarily cited insufficient funding as a reason for not providing transportation services. For example, in one Oklahoma school district, children did not necessarily attend prekindergarten classes at their neighborhood school; consequently, the district would have incurred additional costs to transport children to their designated school. One official in a rural school district we visited in New York told us that more children from low-income and working families would have participated in prekindergarten if transportation were provided. However, costs prohibited the district from offering such services. However, officials in the urban school district we visited in New York did not view the lack of transportation as a barrier to participation, as the prekindergarten programs were generally available in proximity to children’s homes or parents’ jobs. In Georgia, the Department of Early Care and Learning offered additional funding to providers who opted to transport eligible children to and from the prekindergarten program. In May 2004, the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning paid for the transportation of 13,152 children. In New Jersey, the Abbott school districts were required to provide transportation when needed.

In Oklahoma, where the majority of the participating children attended half-day prekindergarten programs, school district officials told us that the length of the school day affected participation. In all three school districts we visited, local officials told us that shortened program hours may have hindered the participation of children of low-income and working families. Officials from one Oklahoma school district told us that the combination of a half-day program coupled with the lack of transportation to and from the prekindergarten program reduced the participation of children from low-income and working families. In that district, approximately 45 percent of the district’s elementary school population was eligible for free and reduced price lunch during the 2003-04 school year, but only 29 percent of the children enrolled in prekindergarten were eligible for free and reduced price lunch, indicating lower participation of children from low-income families. Similarly, in another Oklahoma school district, while about 84 percent of the district’s student population was eligible for free and reduced price lunch, 60 percent of children who participated in prekindergarten were eligible for free and reduced price lunch. However, officials in two Oklahoma school districts told us that certain factors discouraged them from offering full-day programs; for example, they were able to serve twice as many children with half-day programs, rather than full-day programs, using the same resources (classrooms and teachers). Additionally, one of these officials told us that it would be difficult to implement full-day prekindergarten while the school district only offered a half-day kindergarten program.

Finally, some school district officials told us that the location of the program could also affect the participation of children of working families. In particular, half-day programs without transportation could be more appealing to low-income and working families if they were offered in a child care center where the child could receive care for the duration of the work day. One urban school district we visited primarily offered half-day prekindergarten classes. However, the school district officials told us that the prekindergarten classes were sometimes offered in conjunction with other programs at the same location. A district official and child care providers in this school district told us that this arrangement met the needs of low-income and working families as children would receive a full day of care. Officials and child care providers in this school district told us that in order to offer a full day of care, some child care providers supplemented the state-sponsored prekindergarten program with other monies, including Head Start funding, CCDF subsidies, and parent payments.

State and Local Officials and Community-Based Providers Said Collaborations Were Beneficial to Their Programs, but They Also Identified Some Challenges

Although state and local officials, as well as staff of community-based organizations, told us that collaborations were beneficial, some challenges remained. Officials in all four states we visited told us that such collaborations allowed them to serve more children, and three of the five programs served most prekindergarten children in community-based organizations such as Head Start and child care centers. In Georgia, New Jersey, and New York, officials reported that they made extensive use of collaborations because they wanted to implement the prekindergarten programs quickly and schools were often at capacity. In New Jersey, the state supreme court ordered the state to provide full-day kindergarten as well as full-day preschool for three- and four-year-olds in the 30 Abbott school districts. To implement the court order, the districts turned to community-based organizations to accommodate the influx of children. In New York, school districts were only required to use at least 10 percent of their universal prekindergarten grant funds to serve children in community-based organizations. Two school districts we visited in New York served the majority of participating children in community-based organizations (66 and 100 percent). However, in Oklahoma, where school districts had been experiencing declining enrollment, collaborations with community-based organizations were less prevalent, as districts were able to accommodate prekindergarten children in public schools. Officials from most of the school districts we visited that did use collaborations told us that the collaborations allowed them to take advantage of the existing early child care and education infrastructure, such as buildings, equipment, and assistant teachers to increase program capacity and reduce program costs.

Child care providers who partnered with state prekindergarten programs generally had favorable experiences with collaborations as well. Specifically, providers mentioned increased enrollment, improved quality of programs, and increased access to school district resources as benefits of their partnerships. Some providers who collaborated with the state prekindergarten programs in Georgia, New Jersey, and New York told us that they expanded their centers to serve more children of all ages—as some parents enrolled the younger siblings of their prekindergarten children in the same child care center. In addition, child care providers in all four states told us that the overall quality of care had improved as a result of collaborating with the state prekindergarten program. Some providers attributed the improved quality to various factors, including a greater focus on learning, the presence of credentialed teachers, and higher standards for the children. Finally, some child care providers who collaborated with state-sponsored prekindergarten programs told us that the partnership allowed them increased access to school district resources such as professional development and materials such as new computers for the classrooms.

Head Start grantees also told us that collaborations were beneficial to their programs. For example, in Georgia and New York, some Head Start grantees who provided prekindergarten services stated they were better able to serve children by leveraging state prekindergarten and Head Start funds. These grantees told us they were able to expand program hours and enrich the learning environment while still providing Head Start’s services, including establishing family partnerships. In Georgia, Head Start grantees served 3,654 children, or just over 5 percent of the children enrolled in the program during the 2004 fiscal year. In New York, Head Start provided about 345 classrooms of prekindergarten—representing about 9 percent of the total number of prekindergarten classrooms. Two Head Start grantees told us that since the state prekindergarten program served four-year-olds they began serving more three-year-olds. As a result, children from low-income families could participate in 2 full years of preschool.

While collaborations generally benefited early childhood programs, some challenges existed in establishing and maintaining partnerships between state-sponsored prekindergarten programs and community-based organizations. State and school district officials told us that establishing and maintaining collaborations took effort, required expertise, and involved increased monitoring and technical assistance, including financial guidance. For example, while one school district we visited had a staff person responsible for establishing and maintaining collaborations, another school district did not have such an expert and was unsure about how to develop partnerships or arrange the formal contracts needed to collaborate.

Child care providers also mentioned certain challenges such as insufficient or uncertain funding. For example, in New York and Georgia, where per child funding to community-based organizations had remained fairly level for at least the past 3 years, some child care providers told us that the per child funding was insufficient and they had to use other funding sources to support the collaboration. In addition, we found that challenges existed in establishing the collaborations with Head Start in all four states. In both Oklahoma and New York, there was no formal mechanism, such as a statewide contract to facilitate collaboration between school districts and Head Start grantees, and the two programs sometimes coexisted in the same community without the benefit of shared resources. Two of the three school districts we visited in Oklahoma did not collaborate with Head Start; the third served about 9 percent of its prekindergarten children through collaborations with Head Start grantees. Challenges in establishing collaborations with Head Start also remained in New Jersey. In 2003, New Jersey’s Department of Education and Department of Human Services developed plans for including Head Start grantees as partners in providing prekindergarten in the Abbott districts over the following 3 years. However, many challenges remained to achieving this goal including agreement on appropriate per child funding levels, as well as challenges in aligning curricula and other coordination issues.

Few Data Available to Determine the Impact of State Prekindergarten Programs on Availability and Prices of Child Care

While some community-based providers were initially apprehensive about the potential impact of the widespread availability of states’ prekindergarten programs on the market for child care, we found few data to support this concern. In the states we visited, neither state officials nor the child care provider community had data regarding the effects of expanded prekindergarten programs on the availability and prices of child care. The available data were limited to child care market rate surveys, which were conducted by states to obtain information needed to set reimbursement rates for child care, and data collected every 5 years by the Census of Service Industries on the number of tax filings by child day care providers. Market rate surveys provided relatively recent data on prices, but generally did not include sufficient data to isolate any effects of prekindergarten and were not always collected in a comparable or reliable form before and after prekindergarten expansion. In contrast, the state level data currently available from the Census of Service Industries were collected in a consistent fashion over time and across states, but were available only for the period through 1997, just 2 years after significant growth in the prekindergarten program in Georgia, the oldest expanded program of the five we studied. The data indicate that the number of small child care providers per 1,000 preschoolers in Georgia and the nation as a whole followed similar growth trends from 1987 to 1997, the years of available data. Further, in the same time period, the number of child care centers per 1,000 preschoolers and the number of employees paid by these centers increased in both Georgia and the nation (where prekindergarten services were generally less available than in Georgia). However, this does not prove that the expansion of prekindergarten programs had no effect on the number of child care providers. For example, perhaps the number of providers would have increased even more had prekindergarten programs not been expanded.

The anecdotal evidence regarding the effects of prekindergarten programs on the market for child care was mixed. For example, representatives of the child care community mentioned some positive effects on the market for child care, including the increased availability and accessibility of high- quality child care and early education for children from low-income families. However, some child care providers in Georgia, New Jersey, and Oklahoma told us that state programs had adverse effects on the business of child care, but they were unable to provide us with supporting documentation. According to child care providers, the care of three- and four-year-olds was less costly than the care of infants and toddlers, and the revenue generated from caring for the older children subsidized the care of younger children and made up a significant portion of their revenues. Child care providers also said that the enrollment of four-year-olds in state prekindergarten programs could result in child care centers raising prices to compensate for the loss of such revenues or even going out of business. In addition, some child care providers in Georgia told us that because state program funding did not cover the costs of operating prekindergarten, some centers had raised the rates for other services such as extended day care.

However, any potential effects of prekindergarten on the price and availability of child care may have been mitigated by certain design aspects of the programs in the states we visited. For example, while the majority of prekindergarten children in Oklahoma were served in public school settings, the potential effects on the child care market may have been mitigated because most children were in half-day prekindergarten programs and some needed child care before and after the program. In Oklahoma, the state Department of Human Services also provided a full- day reimbursement for CCDF-eligible children who used child care for more than 4 hours a day. As a result, the state’s half-day program appeared to have minimal impact on child care providers. In New Jersey’s Abbott districts and Georgia, which had full-day prekindergarten, the classes were often situated in community-based organizations. Consequently, many four-year-olds who attended these programs remained in community- based settings, and child care providers maintained their enrollment of four-year-olds. Furthermore, in the Abbott districts, the New Jersey Department of Human Services provided additional funds to cover 4 hours of child care, beyond the 6 hour educational program. As a result, some child care centers were reimbursed for providing services for up to 10 hours per day.

Some Data Have Been Collected on Outcomes for Participating Children

Some data have been collected on outcomes for participating children, but little is known about outcomes for their families. In all the school districts we visited, prekindergarten teachers routinely assessed children and provided parents with information about their child’s progress during the school year. However, the states did not collect and analyze these assessment data. We found two studies that provided information about the educational outcomes of state prekindergarten programs on children in Oklahoma and Georgia. One study focused on the Tulsa School District and found that children who participated in the Tulsa prekindergarten program had significantly higher scores on several school readiness measures than children who did not participate in the program. A second study analyzed statewide data regarding Georgia’s prekindergarten program and reported that children who participated in one of three programs studied (Georgia’s prekindergarten program, Head Start, and private preschools) generally made significant gains on developmental skills during the prekindergarten year. None of the four states we visited reported collecting information regarding the impact of their programs on families. State officials told us that prekindergarten programs increased choices for families, but none reported knowing whether the prekindergarten program had any effect on parents’ work efforts.

Teachers Regularly Assessed Children’s Progress, although States Did Not Systematically Collect These Data

In general, teachers assessed the progress of the children’s development in the course of teaching prekindergarten using developmentally appropriate assessments. We found that the types of assessments varied across prekindergarten providers, and some providers used multiple types of assessments. For example, assessments included checklists that rated the child’s progress on various developmental objectives, observational records, as well as portfolio assessments, which consisted of a collection of the child’s work and projects that showed the child’s progress throughout the school year. In general, such assessments were used to inform the teacher and provide information to parents during the school year. None of the states required a particular assessment of children’s outcomes.

State officials acknowledged the importance of collecting and analyzing student outcome data. However, such analysis had not been systematically conducted on a statewide basis in any of the four states we visited. The outcome data that the teachers had were not necessarily in a form conducive to collection and analysis by the states. Officials offered various reasons for not collecting outcome data. In New York, officials told us that there was no funding for large-scale data collection efforts and they were awaiting the results of this year’s fourth grade state test to analyze the potential long-term effects of their prekindergarten program, since some of these fourth graders had participated in the prekindergarten program as four-year-olds. In New Jersey, state officials told us that they planned to perform a program evaluation including children’s outcomes after the program had matured. In Oklahoma, state officials told us that they did not collect outcome data for all children in the state, but limited information regarding program outcomes was available in two school districts. For example, we found that one school district we visited in Oklahoma had collected and analyzed data on the outcomes of 22 children over a 1-year period, 11 of whom participated in the district’s prekindergarten program.

Two Studies Provided Some Information about the Outcomes for Children Who Participated in State Prekindergarten Programs

Two recent studies provided some information on outcomes for children in two state prekindergarten programs. A study conducted by researchers at Georgetown University analyzed the short-term effects of prekindergarten on children in the Tulsa public schools and found positive effects of the Tulsa program. In particular, the study found that children who participated in the Tulsa prekindergarten program had higher scores on both cognitive knowledge and language measures, and on measures of motor skills, than did similar children who did not participate. Additionally, the Tulsa study found that impacts tended to be larger for African American and Hispanic children, and that there was little impact for white children, although the authors discussed certain ceiling effects that may have made it difficult to detect any impacts for white children as a whole. The study also found that children who qualified for the full free lunch program showed greater benefits than the population as a whole, and benefits were larger for children from low-income families who participated in full-day programs than those participating in half-day programs.

The second study, sponsored in part by the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning and conducted by Georgia State University, also found progress among children who participated in the Georgia prekindergarten program during the 2001-02 school year. The study compared the progress of children in three early education settings: private preschool, Georgia’s state prekindergarten program, and Head Start. Children participating in the three programs performed at different levels upon entering the programs. The study reported that at the beginning of prekindergarten, children enrolled in Head Start demonstrated less mastery of certain skills than did children in the Georgia prekindergarten program, who, in turn, scored lower than children in private preschools. The study found that children in all three programs made significant gains over the course of 1 year, though in general, the gains made by the prekindergarten children were not significantly different from the gains made by the other two groups of children. By the end of prekindergarten, or at the beginning of the kindergarten year, the relative rankings of the children from the different programs had not changed. The researchers also matched children with similar backgrounds to compare the effectiveness of Head Start and Georgia’s state prekindergarten program. When comparing the language, communication, problem-solving, and basic mastery skill scores for the matched samples of children, researchers noted one case—basic skill mastery—in which the gap between scores of the state prekindergarten children and the Head Start children widened to a statistically significant level at the end of the prekindergarten year.

Concluding Observations

Citing benefits of prekindergarten, many states have made an investment in the early education of young children, especially four-year-olds. Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma have taken steps to expand early educational opportunities for preschoolers. These four states offer different approaches for consideration by other states that are considering whether to expand the scope of their prekindergarten programs. Given that states have limited resources, an opportunity exists to engage community-based providers such as Head Start grantees and other early education and care providers in the coordinated delivery of additional prekindergarten services. Collaborations between school districts and community-based organizations facilitate the coordination of child care and early learning for preschoolers and can provide additional classroom capacity. At the same time, these partnerships can help allay fears among child care providers that prekindergarten programs would supplant the need for community-based services.

It is also important to acknowledge the trade-offs of certain program features. For example, while programs with limited hours may accommodate a higher number of children within the same facility and may be less likely to affect existing child care providers, they may create barriers to participation for children of working families and show smaller effects in school readiness of children. Also, prekindergarten programs may benefit by collaborating with existing programs to maximize the efficient use of limited state and federal education resources. However, such arrangements may make it necessary for states and school districts to invest resources to facilitate such coordination. Perhaps the biggest trade-off that states face is whether the benefits of an expanded prekindergarten program outweigh those of one that is more targeted. Targeted programs have the advantage of giving more intensive services to eligible children who may benefit most from prekindergarten, but such programs exclude some children who might also benefit. Additional information on outcomes for children in the most intensive programs, particularly relative to children who do not receive comparable services, may be helpful to other states considering varied types of prekindergarten services, as would data on the benefits of half-day programs relative to full-day programs.

Agency Comments

The Departments of Health and Human Services and Education were provided a draft of this report for review and comment. The Department of Health and Human Services commented that given the discussions surrounding the “state option” proposals being held during Head Start reauthorization, our report is informative. Education’s Executive Secretariat stated that the department appreciated the opportunity to review the draft but was not going to provide agency comments. Both agencies provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Education, relevant congressional committees, and other interested parties. Please contact me on (202) 512-7215 if you or your staff have any questions about this report. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov. Other GAO contacts and staff acknowledgments are listed in appendix III.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

In conducting our review, we obtained and analyzed information from the federal Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, state agencies, and local education agencies (LEA). We visited four states, and in each state we interviewed staff from state agencies and LEAs, and generally included one urban, one suburban, and one rural school district in each state—for a total of 12 school districts. We also interviewed early childhood education and child care policy experts and reviewed selected current literature on state-sponsored prekindergarten programs.

For our fieldwork, we considered states that (1) had expanded programs and aimed to serve all children whose families wanted them to attend, (2) served large numbers of children in their prekindergarten programs, and (3) had well-established programs. We attempted to include varied program models and gave some priority to states that had studied their efforts.

To determine how states designed their prekindergarten programs, we interviewed state and local education officials and officials of 13 community-based organizations who were direct providers of state prekindergarten services. We also reviewed documents related to states’ prekindergarten programs, including state laws, general program information, state data on program participation and costs, curriculum guides, content standards, and contracts governing collaborations with community-based organizations. We obtained information to describe the state-sponsored prekindergarten programs and reviewed the data for reasonableness. We assessed reliability of specific information, including estimates of age-eligible children and program expenditures, by interviewing state officials in all four states about their data reliability assessment processes. On the basis of this information, we concluded that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. In addition, we performed a detailed review of the methodology of a National Institute for Early Education Research report and found it to be sufficient for descriptive purposes. The data that were used for background purposes were not independently verified.

To determine the potential implications of prekindergarten on other programs that serve four-year-olds, we interviewed state child care administrators, state and local Head Start association directors, coordinators and program staff, as well as staff of local child care centers. We also met with national and state representatives of the National Child Care Association (an association of managers and owners of child care centers) and related organizations, as well as state and local staff of child care resource and referral offices. We also reviewed selected national and state data on child care availability and prices. Finally, we interviewed state officials regarding federal funds, including Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant. We did not review the expenses of providers of state prekindergarten services to ascertain the extent, if any, to which federal funds or other revenues may have subsidized provision of prekindergarten.

To determine what is known about the impacts of prekindergarten programs on children and families in the states visited, we interviewed state and local education officials and local policy experts. We also identified two studies on children’s outcomes that met our selection criteria: studies that (1) analyzed student achievement and (2) compared prekindergarten children with a control or comparison group of children who did not attend the state-sponsored prekindergarten programs. To collect information systematically, we developed a data collection instrument and examined each study to assess the adequacy of the samples and measures employed, the reasonableness and rigor of the statistical techniques used to analyze them, and the validity of the results and conclusions that were drawn from the analyses. A social scientist read and coded the documentation for each study. A second social scientist reviewed each completed data collection instrument and the relevant documentation to verify the accuracy of every coded item. We found these two studies to be sufficiently reliable and rigorous to include in our report.

We did not identify any studies that assessed the impact of these prekindergarten programs on working families such as workforce participation.

We conducted our work between October 2003 and August 2004 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contacts

Staff Acknowledgments

The following people also made important contributions to this report: Nagla’a El-Hodiri, Shana Wallace, Alison Martin, Jean McSween, Barbara Hills, Susan Bernstein, Amy Buck, and Daniel Schwimer.

Related GAO Products

Head Start: Better Data and Processes Needed to Monitor Underenrollment. GAO-04-17. Washington, D.C.: December 4, 2003.

Child Care: States Exercise Flexibility in Setting Reimbursement Rates and Providing Access for Low-Income Children. GAO-02-894. Washington, D.C.: September 18, 2003.

Early Childhood Programs: The Use of Impact Evaluations to Assess Program Effects. GAO-01-542. Washington, D.C.: April 16, 2001.

Title I Preschool Education: More Children Served, but Gauging Effect on School Readiness Difficult. GAO-00-171. Washington, D.C.: September 20, 2000.

Early Education and Care: Overlap Indicates Need to Assess Crosscutting Programs. GAO/HEHS-00-78. Washington, D.C.: April 28, 2000.

Preschool Education: Federal Investment for Low-Income Children Significant but Effectiveness Unclear. GAO/T-HEHS-00-83. Washington, D.C.: April 11, 2000.

Early Childhood Programs: Characteristics Affect the Availability of School Readiness Information. GAO/HEHS-00-38. Washington, D.C.: February 28, 2000.

Education and Care: Early Childhood Programs and Services for Low- Income Families. GAO/HEHS-00-11. Washington, D.C.: November 15, 1999.