Who Benefits From Universal Prekindergarten?

Complete brief

Between 2009 and 2019, California made major policy changes to key educational investments for preschool and elementary school students, including the California State Preschool Program (CSPP); transitional kindergarten (TK), created by the Kindergarten Readiness Act; and K–12 financing, overhauled with the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). This study finds that each investment produced substantial, equity-enhancing gains in math and reading achievement—and that these gains compounded across the early years. TK delivered its largest benefits to the children least likely to have access to high-quality prekindergarten (PreK), narrowing gaps by family income. Those benefits were larger for children who first attended CSPP as 3-year-olds, were larger still in well-funded schools, and persisted longest where resources were the greatest. The findings show that sequenced public investments can produce multiplier effects that exceed the sum of their parts. 

The report on which this brief is based can be found here. 

Key findings of the study include the following: 

• Cohorts affected by the Kindergarten Readiness Act—who had access to TK at age 4 and attended CSPP at age 3 at much higher rates than prior cohorts—showed reading achievement nearly a full grade level higher and math achievement roughly two thirds of a grade level higher in 3rd and 4th grades than comparable earlier cohorts. 

• For children from low-income backgrounds with English-speaking parents, TK attendance led to about 7 months of additional learning in 3rd-grade math and reading. Effects were much smaller for children from more advantaged backgrounds. 

• Among low-income children, TK effects were larger for those who first attended CSPP. Low-income multilingual learners had nearly half a year of additional learning gains in 4th grade math when their TK attendance was preceded by CSPP attendance. 

• A $1,000 increase in CSPP per-pupil spending led to almost a quarter of a year of additional learning in math and reading 3 and 4 years after kindergarten, independent of TK and school spending. 

• TK attendance and LCFF-induced school spending were mutually reinforcing: TK effects grew with elementary school funding and persisted longer in better-resourced schools