Early care and education in the Golden State: Publicly funded programs serving California's pre-school age children

Excerpts from the news release

California's sizeable achievement gaps in English-language arts and mathematics in second and third grades have early roots, with the same groups of children that lag in academic performance in elementary school trailing in measures of school readiness when they enter kindergarten, according to RAND Corporation research issued today. Participation in effective preschool programs has the potential to narrow these gaps, but the state's current system of publicly funded early care and education programs are not designed to maximize the child development and school readiness benefits, according to the two new RAND studies. Researchers found that a sizeable number of California's students fall short of the state's proficiency standards in English-language arts and mathematics when assessed in second and third grade. The achievement shortfalls are largest for English learners, students whose parents have less than a high school education, black and Hispanic children, and children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The same patterns of achievement differences were evident in other assessments researchers assembled to judge performance at earlier grades and on measures of school readiness when children entered kindergarten. There are several well-designed studies that show high-quality preschool programs serving children one or two years before kindergarten can improve school readiness and raise performance on academic achievement tests in the early elementary grades through middle school, according to the RAND research. This evidence is from programs in other states that serve the same groups of children that demonstrate low academic performance in California.