Improving early education in Minnesota means doing what works for all children. This is why the state set the goal that by 2020 all children are ready for school at kindergarten entry. As has been frequently documented over the past decade, however, Minnesota is far short of where it needs to be to achieve this goal.
The best available evidence from the Minnesota Department of Education is that only half of children enter kindergarten fully ready. Since most young learners are from middle-income families, large increases are needed across the income spectrum to meet the state goal. Schools also have a central role in creating and sustaining early learning gains.
Minnesota ranks 37th out of 43 states with pre-K programs in access for 4-year-olds, according to the just-released state pre-K yearbook of the National Institute for Early Education Research. Approximately 25 percent of our 4-year-olds are in public programs, including from federal, state, and local funding. By contrast, 80 percent of Wisconsin young children are in such programs. Among the top 10 states, the percentage of children in public programs ranges from 50 percent to 87 percent.
To increase access to high quality, Minnesota established Voluntary PreK and School Readiness Plus programs in 2016, serving more than 7,100 4-year-olds in 111 school districts and charters across the state. Since this was a one-time funding allocation, the Legislature must act in the current session to continue funding the programs in 59 districts that will not have sufficient resources to continue.
Given the state’s low standing, a budget surplus of over $350 million, and overwhelming evidence from across the nation of positive effects of pre-K on learning, funding should not only be maintained for Voluntary PreK and School Readiness Plus but increased to levels that would put Minnesota in the top 10 states. Surely, a state that is perennially one of the healthiest can also lead in early childhood health.
There is a mountain of research that supports increasing investments to serve more children in high-quality programs, especially in school-based settings. Consider the following evidence from a wide variety of contexts and programs.
1. There is overwhelming support from research that state pre-K programs have large positive effects on school readiness and achievement. Recent evidence from Oklahoma, Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, and North Carolina are just a few examples from three decades of ressearch.
In the first long-term study of universal preschool in public schools, Tulsa, Oklahoma, graduates at all income levels showed improved math achievement, increased enrollment in honors courses, and reduced rates of grade retention up to age 13. Graduates of the Michigan state pre-K program showed higher rates of high school graduation than students not in the program.
2. The best evidence of long-term effects leading to high economic returns is from school-based programs, which is the basis of Voluntary Prek and School Readiness Plus. The two programs that advocates such as Art Rolnick, Close Gaps by Five, and Think Small have long touted as showing a high return on investment — Perry Preschool and Child-Parent Centers — are both school-based pre-K, yielding annual rates of return of 18 percent. Yet, where is the evidence in advocating for so-called “market-based” early learning scholarships over school-based systems that have worked for five decades? This is unfortunately special-interest advocacy masquerading as evidence-based analysis.
A recent study of eight states with very different pre-K features found, based on rigorous designs, positive effects of state pre-K on school readiness for all of them. The only similar study of early learning scholarships showed no advantage for scholarship children at kindergarten entry compared to children whose families received state child care subsidies but with no requirement that they attend a quality-rated center.
3. The key elements of programs showing large and sustained effects include: (a) small classes and low child-to-staff ratios, (b) intensive focus on a range of readiness skills, (c) family-school partnering, (d) frequent monitoring and feedback, (e) teachers with BAs and compensation levels comparable to K-12 teachers, and (f) a well-developed organizational support system. These elements are the basis of Voluntary Prek and School Readiness Plus.
My studies in the Saint Paul and Chicago schools show that the presence of these elements enhances the continuum of success from kindergarten readiness to college graduation. Participation in the Child-Parent Centers in the Saint Paul Public Schools, for example, increased literacy skills at the end of kindergarten by 20 percent. In a long-term study of the same program in Chicago beginning at age 3 and continuing to the early grades, participants increased their rate of completion of a college degree by 41 percent over those in the comparison group.
4. Jurisdictions as diverse as Vermont, Oklahoma, Seattle, Madison, and New York City provide universal access that varies in financing but all include schools as a primary location for implementation. The City of Saint Paul has been investigating the benefits of a similar universal system. To be effective at scale requires tailoring services from birth to 5 that best fit the need in both school and community contexts, but they must follow the same key elements of quality.
In addition to strong evidence, school-based programs have built-in continuity to K-3 education, which is critical given the just-released results from the National Assessement of Progress that only 39 percent of Minnesota 4th graders are reading proficient. Enhancing the pre-K-3rd learning continuum is a major need. Although local and state initiatives are working to improve the alignment and quality of education over time, scaling evidence-based practices from small classes to professional learning and family engagement deserves high priority.
The evidence that state pre-K and public programs across income levels are effective confirms what parents know, and want for their children. In a recent national survey, only 18 percent of respondents said they have high-quality and affordable programs in their community. Nearly 9 in 10 supported increased public funding for middle- and low-income families to address the problem.
Now is the time to make the necessary investments in high-quality programs for young learners.
Arthur J. Reynolds is co-director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota and a professor in the Institute of Child Development.
