Among Child Care Options in Miami, Children Learn More in School-Based Pre-K

[Harold Schiffman]

Among Child Care Options in Miami, Children Learn More in School-Based Pre-K
Lisa Guernsey -
April 22, 2009 - 10:00am

You voted. We investigated. In a blog post earlier this month, we
asked you to choose what research most piqued your interest among 10
relevant posters released at the biennial meeting of the Society for
Research in Child Development. The top 3 vote-getters: Research on
"fade-out" in the elementary school years; social behavior in
preschool; and early academic outcomes for children in family-based
care, center-based or public pre-K.  Here is your first report, on the
latter of those three. Keep in mind that these are early findings from
not-yet-published research.  Stay tuned for the next two, and thanks
for your input.

Children who attended pre-K programs run by the Miami-Dade County
Public Schools are doing better in elementary school than their peers
who attended community-based child-care settings paid for with public
subsidies, according to new research from the Miami School Readiness
Project.
Those who attended pre-K programs at age 4 in non-Title I schools
showed the most dramatic gains compared to their counterparts. Their
grades averaged in the B+ range across kindergarten, 1st , 2nd and 3rd
grades. Their standardized test scores in math and reading were higher
than those who went to Title I programs or child-care centers in the
community. Family income appears to account for some, but not all, of
the difference, researchers said, because even poor children in those
programs did well compared to poor children in other programs.

Children in the Title I pre-K programs also achieved significantly
higher grades and test scores in some cases, though their gains were
only slightly higher than their peers who came from community-based
providers. The study, which included nearly 14,000 children, tracked
outcomes for children who were 4 in 2003 -- two years before Florida
started its universal pre-K program. Researchers examined data on
early childhood enrollments and public school records up to the
2006-07 school year. They also focused on children in poverty and
children whose families qualified for government subsidies for
childcare. (The subsidies came from programs funded by the Child Care
Development Block Grant or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.)

In a surprise to researchers, it did not seem to matter in most cases
whether children receiving those subsidies went to child-care centers
or family day care (settings in which non-relatives take care of small
groups of children in their homes). In general, researchers found
little academic disadvantage to one over the other. "We expected
family daycares to be not as good, but that wasn't found," said Adam
Winsler, a professor of applied developmental psychology at George
Mason University and a lead researcher on the project. In the Miami
area, as elsewhere, Winsler said, family day care and child-care
centers have been reported to be of "average, mediocre quality." In
general, low-to-average child-care programs are typically associated
with far fewer academic gains than high-quality pre-K programs.

Jessica De Feyter, a doctoral student at George Mason, presented the
research at SRCD's biennial meeting earlier this month. The study is
part of a larger project examining the impact of early childhood
experiences in the urban and heavily Latino county of Miami-Dade. Of
the children being studied, 57 percent are Latino. Winsler and Charles
Bleiker of Florida International University started the project in
2002, and Louis Manfra at FIU is now involved as a lead investigator
as well.

Last summer, the Early Childhood Research Quarterly published the
project's first findings, which showed that 4-year-olds in poverty
were better prepared for kindergarten after one year of pre-K in the
public schools. In tests at the end of the pre-K school year, the
children showed relatively large leaps in cognitive ability and
language skills. Those who had spent a year in a child-care center
also made significant progress, though their gains were not as great.

Although the project started two years before the state-wide launch of
Florida's Voluntary Prekindergarten program in 2005, its findings
could have implications for parents of young children, educators and
policy makers. The VPK program, as the pre-K program is called, is
free to all children in Florida and enables parents to choose among
community-based or public school providers. But the program has been
criticized for allocating only $2,500 per child, and the National
Institute for Early Education Research says it meets only 4 of 10
benchmarks for quality.

This month's study shows children in varying childcare settings
sustaining some learning gains through 3rd grade. But the pre-K
programs in the public schools appeared to make the biggest
difference. Winsler noted that these programs use an early learning
curriculum (his previous study showed that most of the Miami-Dade
public school pre-K programs use the High/Scope curriculum) and
featured teachers with salaries and credentials commensurate with
other public school teachers.

The study begs a closer look at the pre-K programs in non-Title I
schools specifically, since they appear to be doing the most for
children in poverty. These programs were not free -- parents at the
time paid a fee to enroll their children -- but evidently some
impoverished families in non-Title I neighborhoods were enrolling
their children anyway because the classes included children who, a
year later, qualified for free/reduced-price lunch in kindergarten. In
future research, Winsler said, he and his colleagues hope to examine
differences between Title I and non-Title I pre-K programs within the
public school system, as well as explore whether factors beyond family
income might make some children more likely to attend one program over
another.

As the research poster explained: "There is likely something about
center/school/program quality that distinguishes Title I and fee-based
public school pre-k and contributes to children's positive outcomes."
One final note on the poster: Its findings have not yet been published
and it does not include data on children who, at age 4, had parents or
relatives taking care of them at home or who paid for enrollment in
private preschools or child-care centers without using a subsidy. We
have no way of knowing whether they might have benefited academically
from the pre-K in the public schools or in other early childhood
settings and how their outcomes may differ from the children studied.

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/early-ed-watch/2009/comparison-child-care-options-miami-children-learn-more-school-based-pre-k-11247



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