poverty status.<sup>14</sup> Within each public/private, region, and poverty status strata, a random sample totaling 46 districts was drawn.<sup>15</sup> Five schools were randomly selected within each district.<sup>16</sup> A total of 214 schools were sampled.<sup>17</sup> Data from 213 schools are included in this study.<sup>18</sup> Data were collected for up to three KG1 and three KG2 classes per school (randomly selected if more than three). There were 638 classrooms with child and teacher data completed. A random sample of four children per classroom was selected. The sample of children whose data were successfully collected was 2,455 observations.<sup>19</sup> The data collection firm tried up to three times to reach parents, based on phone numbers provided by the school. For the parent data, there was substantial non-response (primarily that parents did not pick up, but some refusal when reached) such that only 1,437 parents were reached and consented.<sup>20</sup> We focus on the sub-sample with parental data in order to be able to investigate home environments and inequality.

# **_3.4 Outcomes_**

We examine three main categories of outcomes: early childhood development (collected through direct assessments and teacher reports), pre-primary quality (collected through observations), and stimulation at home (collected through parent reports). We summarize a large number of variables (as detailed in the appendix) into factors using confirmatory factor analysis.<sup>21</sup> The only selection criteria was that the first factor has an eigenvalue of at least one. We kept even items with low loadings in making the index, but since the loadings were small, they have a small role in determining the value of the factor.

For ECD, we examine:

- Literacy skills

- From the direct assessment: literacy interest; expressive language; expressive vocabulary; letter identification; letter sound identification, initial sound discrimination; listening comprehension; name writing; shape copying; receptive spatial vocabulary

- From the teacher report: letter, name and word writing, text directionality, letter names, and picture drawing

- Math skills

> 14 Poverty rates distinguish between poor, high-poverty communities (50% poverty rate or above) and non-poor, lower poverty communities (below 50% poverty rate).

> 15 Districts were randomly selected probability proportional to size (based on the number of schools), with replacement. Districts were drawn from within regions and based on the poverty status within a region (33% poor schools as cutoff).

> 16 If there are fewer than five schools within a district and strata, all schools were used (one to four).

> 17 Seven of the originally selected schools were unavailable (closed, in renovations, etc.) and random replacement schools, as much as possible from the same strata, were used.

> 18 Weather precluded completing one school.

> 19 Only one child did not consent; 97 child observations were not completed by enumerators, for an overall response rate of 96%.

> 20 Relative to the planned 2,552 child observations, this is a response rate of 56%. Only 10 parents, when reached, did not consent.

> 21 The appendix details the factor analysis; for full questions and responses see questionnaires, available at https://carolinekrafft.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Diagnostic-KG-Instruments-ENGLISH-upload-2022.10.14CGK.pdf.

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