Big Lift preschoolers and non–Big Lift preschoolers were equally likely to start school kindergarten-ready

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift) is a preschool–third grade collective impact initiative in San Mateo County, California, launched in 2012 by the County of San Mateo, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), and the San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE). The initiative aims to boost third-grade reading proficiency through a set of coordinated activities, called "pillars": (1) High-Quality Preschool; (2) Summer Learning; (3) School Attendance; and (4) Family Engagement.

The RAND Corporation is conducting a multiphase independent evaluation of Big Lift. This brief summarizes results from RAND's descriptive analysis of participation rates and school readiness outcomes for children served in the first year of the initiative by two of the four pillars for which data were available: High-Quality Preschool and Summer Learning.

The study specifically examined three topics for the first cohort of entering kindergartners to experience Big Lift services: participation rates in Big Lift services in the prior year, kindergarten readiness indicators overall, and differences in readiness based on the type of early learning experience they had.

Key Findings

1. During the 2015–2016 school year and the following summer, Big Lift served approximately one-third of the entering 2016–2017 kindergarten class in four Big Lift participating districts.
2. In the 2016–2017 school year, 50 percent of kindergartners in Big Lift districts scored in the kindergarten-ready range on a school readiness assessment at the start of the year.
3. When comparing demographically similar children, Big Lift preschoolers were more likely to be kindergarten-ready than children who did not go to preschool at all. Big Lift preschoolers and non–Big Lift preschoolers were equally likely to start school kindergarten-ready.

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