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Expectations of sustained effects from scaled up pre-K: Challenges from the Tennessee study

Description:
Policymakers and proponents often cite some of the famous early studies of pre-K programs that have shown long term benefits extending into adulthood for the participating children. But those were studies of especially complex programs that are unlike scaled-up public pre-K in many ways. The Vanderbilt study is the first rigorous controlled longitudinal study to be conducted on a large-scale state-funded pre-K program. This report presents findings from the full evaluation report, available online, summarizing the longitudinal effects of TNVPK on pre-kindergarten through third grade achievement and behavioral outcomes for a sample of 1076 children, of which 773 attended TNVPK classrooms and 303 did not. Both groups have been followed since the beginning of the pre-k year. Children in VPK classrooms made initial strong gains and were perceived by their teachers at kindergarten entry as being better prepared. The achievement of the control children caught up to that of the pre-K children by the end of kindergarten. In second and third grades achievement trends crossed over, with academic achievement for the pre-K children becoming worse than for the control children. The results from this substudy are reviewed in the context of the difficulties of determining the sustained effectiveness of statewide pre-K programs when those programs have been defined so differently state to state and when the evidentiary base from other current studies is so weak. (author abstract)
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