Eric.ed.gov – Children’s Outcomes through Second Grade: Findings from Year 4 of Georgia’s Pre-K Longitudinal Study

In 2011-2012, the Georgia legislature funded a series of ongoing studies to evaluate Georgia’s Pre-K Program. The 2016-2017 Georgia’s Pre-K Program Evaluation focuses on the results of the fourth year of this longitudinal study, through second grade. The purpose of the current evaluation study was to examine longitudinal outcomes for children related to key academic and social skills as well as the quality of their classrooms from pre-k through second grade. The primary evaluation questions included: (1) What are the learning outcomes through second grade for children who attended Georgia’s Pre-K Program?; (2) What factors predict better learning outcomes for children?; and (3) What is the quality of children’s instructional experiences from pre-k through second grade? To address these questions, the evaluation study included a sample of 1,169 children (139 Spanish-speaking dual language learners/DLLs) attending a random sample of 199 Georgia’s Pre-K classrooms in year 1. Of the original sample of children, 1,034 were followed into kindergarten in year 2 (118 Spanish-speaking DLLs), 969 (119 Spanish-speaking DLLs) were followed into first grade in year 3, and 951 (116 Spanish-speaking DLLs) were followed into second grade in year 4. Researchers conducted individual child assessments near the beginning and end of each year to examine growth in children’s skills. The assessment measures covered multiple domains of learning, including language, literacy, math, executive function, and teacher ratings of behavior skills. For the DLL subsample, parallel assessments were conducted in both English and Spanish. Researchers also conducted observations in children’s classrooms each year from pre-k through second grade to gather data on the quality of teacher-child instructional interactions using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). In addition, information about characteristics of the classrooms, teachers, and children was gathered from teacher and parent surveys and from existing statewide pre-k program data. Child/family characteristics, classroom/teacher characteristics, and classroom quality were examined as predictors of children’s growth in skills. Overall, this large, representative sample of children who attended Georgia’s Pre-K continued to perform near the mean on most standardized measures based on national norms by the end of second grade. Although children continued to learn and develop throughout this period, their growth was greater than expected from pre-k through kindergarten, but decreased during first and second grades for most measures. [For the executive summary of this report, see ED598161.]