ERIC Number: EJ1167066
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Feb
Pages: 38
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0002-8312
EISSN: N/A
Will Public Pre-K Really Close Achievement Gaps? Gaps in Prekindergarten Quality between Students and across States
Valentino, Rachel
American Educational Research Journal, v55 n1 p79-116 Feb 2018
Publicly funded pre-K is often touted as a means to narrow achievement gaps, but this goal is less likely to be achieved if poor and/or minority children do not, at a minimum, attend equal quality pre-K as their non-poor, non-minority peers. In this paper, I find large "quality gaps" in public pre-K between poor, minority students and non-poor, non-minority students, ranging from 0.3 to 0.7 SD on a range of classroom observational measures. I also find that even after adjusting for several classroom characteristics, significant and sizable quality gaps remain. Finally, I find much between-state variation in gap magnitudes and that state-level quality gaps are related to state-level residential segregation. These findings are particularly troubling if a goal of public pre-K is to minimize inequality.
Descriptors: Preschool Education, Achievement Gap, Educational Quality, Disadvantaged, Advantaged, Low Income Students, Public Schools, Early Childhood Education, Outcome Measures, Performance Factors, Classroom Techniques, Student Characteristics, State Policy, Regression (Statistics), Educational Assessment, Educational Indicators, Rating Scales, Classroom Observation Techniques, Questionnaires, Statistical Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Preschool Education; Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Massachusetts; Ohio; New York; New Jersey; Kentucky; Illinois; Georgia; California; Wisconsin; Washington; Texas
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305B090016