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Anna Shapiro

Jordan S. Berne, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Anna Shapiro, Christina Weiland.

Transitional Kindergarten (TK) is a relatively recent entrant into the U.S. early education landscape, combining features of public pre-K and regular kindergarten. We provide the first estimates of the impact of Michigan’s TK program on 3rd grade test scores. Using an augmented regression discontinuity design, we find that TK improves 3rd grade test scores by 0.29 (math) and 0.19 (English Language Arts) standard deviations relative to a counterfactual that includes other formal and informal early learning options. These impacts are notably large relative to the prior pre-K literature.

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Jordan S. Berne, Katia Cordoba Garcia, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Samuel Owusu, Anna Shapiro, Christina Weiland.

In recent years, several states have expanded a new publicly funded learning option: Transitional Kindergarten (TK). TK programs bridge prekindergarten and kindergarten in their eligibility, requirements, and design. We use Michigan’s TK program as a case study on the fit of this new entrant in the early learning landscape. Michigan’s program is well suited for this purpose because it contains most of the research-aligned program design elements of other large-scale TK programs across the country. Using statewide administrative data, we describe which districts offer TK when doing so is optional, the characteristics of children who enroll in TK at four and five years old, and substitution patterns between TK and alternative learning options. Broadly, we find TK in Michigan closes some socioeconomic gaps in early program enrollment while exacerbating others. Specifically, districts with larger proportions of White students and smaller proportions of economically disadvantaged students are more likely to offer TK than other districts. Within districts that do not offer TK in every school, TK is targeted to schools with more economically disadvantaged students. Among preschool-age children, those from non-economically disadvantaged families are more likely to enroll in TK than their peers; among kindergarten-age children, there is little difference in take-up by family income. Finally, we find evidence of substitution, with some children enrolling in TK instead of state-funded prekindergarten or instead of enrolling in kindergarten early, though with no evidence that public slots decline overall. Our findings have implications for addressing the fragmented early education landscape when expanding programs.

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Meghan McCormick, Mirjana Pralica, JoAnn Hsueh, Christina Weiland, Amanda Weissman, Samantha Xia, Anna Shapiro, Cullen MacDowell, Samuel Maves, Anne Taylor, Jason Sachs.

This study leverages six years of public prekindergarten (PreK) and kindergarten data (N = 22,469) from the Boston Public Schools (BPS) to examine enrollment in BPS PreK from 2012–2017 for students from different racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic groups. The largest differences in enrollment emerged with respect to race and ethnicity—and for enrollment in programs in higher-quality schools (defined as schools scoring in the top quartile on third grade standardized tests)—with disparities increasing over time. Although there were no differences across groups in proximity to BPS PreK programs in general, Black students lived about a quarter of a mile further than their White peers from the nearest program in a higher-quality school, with gaps widening over time. Closer proximity was associated with a higher likelihood of enrollment in a program in a higher-quality school. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

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Christina Weiland, Rebecca Unterman, Susan Dynarski, Rachel Abenavoli, Howard Bloom, Breno Braga, Anne-Marie Faria, Erica Greenberg, Brian A. Jacob, Jane Arnold Lincove, Karen Manship, Meghan McCormick, Luke Miratrix, Tomás E. Monarrez, Pamela Morris-Perez, Anna Shapiro, Jon Valant, Lindsay Weixler.

Lottery-based identification strategies offer potential for generating the next generation of evidence on U.S. early education programs.  Our collaborative network of five research teams applying this design in early education and methods experts has identified six challenges that need to be carefully considered in this next context: 1) available baseline covariates may not be very rich; 2) limited data on the counterfactual; 3) limited and inconsistent outcome data; 4) weakened internal validity due to attrition; 5) constrained external validity due to who competes for oversubscribed programs; and 6) difficulties answering site-level questions with child-level randomization.  We offer potential solutions to these six challenges and concrete recommendations for the design of future lottery-based early education studies.

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Appendix140.99 KB

Diana Leyva, Christina Weiland, Anna Shapiro, Gloria Yeomans-Maldonado, Angela Febles.

Food routines play a special role in Latino families. Using a cluster randomized trial with 248 children (M age = 67 months) from 13 schools, this study investigated the impact of a four-week family program designed to capitalize on food routines in improving Latino kindergarteners’ outcomes in the U.S. There were moderate-to-large impacts on child vocabulary (especially food-related) at end-of-treatment and the five-month follow-up, and suggestive evidence of moderate impacts on approaches to learning (including approaches to learning math) and executive function at the five-month follow-up. There were no statistically significant impacts on children’s math or literacy skills. A strengths-based, culturally responsive family intervention that is integrated into Latino family life can improve critical skills needed to succeed in school.

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Appendix298.65 KB

Anna Shapiro.

Much of the literature estimating disproportionality in special education identification rates has focused on socioeconomic status, race, and gender. However, recent evidence suggests that a student’s school starting age also impacts the likelihood they receive special education services, particularly in the early grades. I build on the evidence that the youngest students in a grade more likely to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and more likely to be placed in special education by estimating the effect of school starting age on special education identification in Michigan. I also estimate heterogeneity in this effect by student characteristics and across school districts. Using a regression discontinuity design exploiting variation in kindergarten starting age generated by a statewide kindergarten entrance age policy, I find that the youngest students in a kindergarten cohort are 40% more likely (3.3 percentage points, p<0.001) to be placed in special education than are the oldest students, and that this effect persists through eighth grade. Despite little evidence of heterogeneity by gender, race, or socioeconomic status, I find some suggestive evidence that the effect is particularly large for white boys in the early elementary grades and for black girls in the later elementary grades. I find no evidence that these effects vary across school districts. Finally, I find exploratory evidence of variation by school cohort age composition, suggesting these effects are driven moreso by relative age comparisons than absolute age developmental differences. Given the importance of special education services to the academic success of children with disabilities, these findings have implications for schools and for policymakers seeking to improve special education program provision.

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