Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Pre-K Program Shows Progress...

New findings from an ongoing study of New Mexico 4-year-olds who attended the state's pre-K initiative show that in its second year of existence, the program continued to improve language, literacy and math development.

The study, “Impacts of New Mexico PreK on Children’s School Readiness at Kindergarten Entry: Results from the Second Year of a Growing Initiative” was conducted by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University by Jason T. Hustedt, W. Steven Barnett, Kwanghee Jung and Alexandra Figueras.

The NIEER study found that as a result of attending the New Mexico program at age 4:
The study estimated the effects of preschool education programs on entering kindergartners' academic skills. With the assistance of the New Mexico Public Education Department and the Children, Youth and Families Department, researchers collected data on preschool and kindergarten children.

“These gains are not only meaningful for the youngsters who achieved them, but they also show that New Mexico’s PreK Initiative continues on the right track,” said lead researcher Jason Hustedt. “It is heartening to see a program this new produce such positive results.”

New Mexico Pre-K achieves nine out of NIEER’s 10 quality benchmarks. The state serves more than 3,500 4-year-olds with the program. A large body of research shows that high-quality preschool programs can lead to increases in school success, higher test scores, fewer school dropouts, higher graduation rates, less special education, and even lower crime rates.


A copy of the report is available on the NIEER website at the following url: http://nieer.org/resources/research/NewMexicoRDD0608.pdf.

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