Proficiency in Reading and Math: First Class Pre-K Benefits Persist in Elementary and Middle School

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High-quality preschool programs provide opportunities to improve child development and school readiness, promote educational outcomes, and contribute to the skilled workforce of tomorrow. Foundational small-scale early education demonstration programs targeted toward disadvantaged children (e.g., Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, Chicago Parent Center Program) resulted in substantial short-term improvements in cognitive skills and academic performance, as well as sustained differences in educational attainment, socioeconomic outcomes, and health into adulthood.

More recent, larger-scale preschool programs have yielded mixed results over the long-term. Though it is generally accepted that high-quality preschool programs yield significant early gains (especially for more disadvantaged children), evaluation of some programs has suggested “fade out,” or diminished academic benefits over time.4

 The purpose of this issue brief is to analyze reading and math proficiency results through middle school to compare performance and persistence over time of any differences between groups of students who received Alabama First Class Pre-K and those who did not.

Students who received First Class Pre-K were statistically significantly more likely to be proficient in math and in reading compared to students who did not receive First Class Pre-K. These results persist after controlling for factors that have been shown to influence academic performance, including poverty, gender, race/ethnicity, classroom/school factors, and time. Further, effects are independent from within-school variation in the receipt of First-Class Pre-K, eliminating the potential for confounding from between-school differences in neighborhood socioeconomic status. The analyses also indicate no evidence of fade out of the benefits of First Class Pre-K over time. 

These findings are especially meaningful considering that the observations are for students in 3rd-7th grades, representing persistence of the benefits of First Class Pre-K well beyond the end of the program and into later grades where some other programs have shown diminished academic impact.