Vanderbilt University researchers, together with the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, have released a new working paper with major implications for early education in Tennessee.
The research substantiates that Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K program (TN-VPK) students who subsequently experienced "sustaining environments" - meaning they attended high-performing K-3 schools and were taught by highly effective teachers - significantly outpaced their peers who also attended high-performing schools and had highly effective teachers but who had not attended TN-VPK. Academic outperformance by the TN-VPK group was significant in both third grade English language arts/reading and third grade math, the researchers conclude.
The study, conducted by six researchers that include Vanderbilt's Dale Farran and Mark Lipsey, who co-led the original Vanderbilt TN-VPK study released in 2015, uses two primary data sources: 1) student information collected as part of the TN-VPK study; and 2) Tennessee teacher evaluation and school performance data.
The original Vanderbilt TN-VPK study found that children participating in pre-K significantly outpaced their peers into kindergarten, but that those gains "faded out" by third grade. That original study did not address the question of why the gains faded, a fact that at times has been misunderstood and falsely characterized as evidence that pre-K doesn't work.
Mike CarpenterThe new study further validates the value of TN-VPK investment. With Tennessee burdened with a crisis that nearly two-thirds of public school third-graders are not proficient in reading or math, the researchers provide policymakers and stakeholders clearer guidance that the combination of TN-VPK and quality K-3 is the major lever for improving academic outcomes in third grade and beyond.
Their major findings include:
1. TN-VPK works. Students who benefit from quality K-3 sustain their pre-K gains and significantly outperform their peers in third grade ELA/reading and math.
2. A "sustaining environment" is defined as highly effective K-3 teachers at high-performing elementary schools. Both are essential for pre-K children to maintain and continue the upward trajectory of their academic advantage.
"The sustaining environments thesis hypothesizes that pre-K effects are more likely to persist into later grades if children experience high-quality learning environments in the years subsequent to pre-K."
3. Investing in high-quality pre-K to third grade is key to improving third grade reading and math proficiency, especially for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
" ... it is promising that having highly effective teachers and attending a high-quality school may provide a sustaining environment for pre-K effects, but this promising finding is tempered by the fact that very few low income children who qualified for VPK actually experienced learning conditions in subsequent years that would reasonably approximate a sustaining environment."
The strong return on investment for high-quality pre-K has been validated by many studies outside of Tennessee, most recently for Alabama, North Carolina and Tulsa, Oklahoma programs.
Other more longitudinal studies have verified longer-term positive effects of high quality pre-K on employment, health, criminal activity and dependence on government assistance, with returns of $7-13 for every $1 invested.
Now is the time for policymakers to pivot away from the fruitless debate about whether taxpayer funds should be invested in pre-K or K-3. The answer is clearly "both." Research shows that pre-K is a vital early learning foundation, especially for economically disadvantaged children. And we must also invest in strategies to enhance our K-3 learning environments.
Mike Carpenter is executive director of Tennesseans for Quality Early Education.