State-funded voluntary pre-K programs have grown steadily over the past decade and now enroll 1.3 million children (Barnett, Carolan, Fitzgerald, J., & Squires, 2012). While the overall trend has been to increase participation in state funded Pre-K, access in most states is targeted to select groups of at-risk 4-year-olds. Unfortunately, targeted programs for disadvantaged children tend to underserve their targeted populations with respect to availability and quality (Gelbach & Pritchett, 2002). In light of this, Pre-K advocates have begun pushing for universal Pre-K. However, only six states offer universal-prekindergarten, and with varying degrees of success. In this environment of modest state funding for Pre-K, the state of Oklahoma has managed to rise to the forefront of the universal Pre-K movement. That a high-quality Pre-K system exists in a conservative state is a very curious case and provides an opportunity for a thorough examination of the political processes. This study seeks not only to explain the development and passage of universal Pre-K in Oklahoma, but to also understand what lessons can be taken from a historical analysis of this issue for contemporary education policy. / text

The current study examined the extent to which associations between participation in a targeted state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-k) program and children’s literacy, numeracy, executive function (EF), and social-emotional skills were moderated by the quality of teacher-child interactions. Data came from an evaluation of a state-funded pre-k program including children enrolled in pre-k and those in a matched comparison group. The sample consisted of 558 children (Mage = 57.74 months) from two cohorts (48.9% female; 43.7% African American; 0.8% Asian; 32.3% European American; 12.4% Hispanic; 10.4% Multiracial). Children’s school readiness assessments and teacher surveys were collected during fall and spring of the preschool year. Research assistants assessed teacher-child interactions using the Pre-K Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, Hamre, 2008) once in the winter of the preschool year. Two-level multilevel linear models were conducted for each school readiness domain and included a variety of control variables. Results suggested that emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support did not significantly moderate the relation between pre-k participation and literacy, numeracy, EF, and social-emotional skills.

Early childhood classroom mentor teachers are often left with little support and guidance as they assume the role of teacher educators. The purpose of this collective case study was to explore how a community of practice comprised of pre-K mentors and a university program coordinator supported the development of shared and individual understandings about how to effectively supervise preservice teachers. Utilizing key tenets of sociocultural theory, four pre-K mentor teachers from two public schools in the Southeast participated in an online and face-to-face community of practice facilitated by a university program coordinator. The pre-K preservice teachers (n=6) were secondary participants in this study. Across twelve weeks, the evolution of collective and individual knowledge was chronicled through interviews, online discussions, face-to-face exchanges, and classroom observations. Audio-tapes from meetings and interviews were transcribed verbatim. Data analyses involved iterative cycles of coding, moving from open coding to process and pattern coding. Through this process, data displays and conceptual memos were created and informed the analyses. Findings from this qualitative study illustrate how the mentors’ processes of coming to know were developed within a complex web of relationships from which they re-envisioned their roles as pre-K teachers. As the mentors negotiated the meaning of mentoring, they engaged in recursive cycles of reshaping their identities through questioning, hypothesizing, and sharing lived experiences. New identities as educators of both children and adults emerged as they considered the role of mentoring as a tangible object to be closely studied, negotiated, and operationalized. The mentors left this study acknowledging that while mentoring was difficult, complex work, it was worthy work.

No description available.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there is a relationship between Tennessee's Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program and kindergarten achievement. I compared the academic growth of who attended a VPK program to students in Title 1 schools who did not attend a VPK program. Kindergarten gives the first easyCBM assessment in the second semester of school. I compared the easyCBM scores of the students who attended a VPK program to the ones who did not attend a VPK program. This could reveal if attending the VPK program is related to the students’ academic growth and the amount of intervention a student will need the second semester of kindergarten. The upper-east Tennessee school system used in this study consisted of a high-quality prekindergarten program and high-quality schools. I examined a population of 628 kindergarten students. There were a total of 280 students who attended the VPK program and a total of 348 students who attended a Title 1 school and did not attend a VPK program. I was given permission from the school system to access the data. The easyCBM data was compiled by the performance excellence administrator and the director of early childhood of the school system. The data consisted of 3 consecutive years of data. The VPK students performed significantly better on the December easyCBM letter sounds, phoneme-segmenting, and math common core state standards screener scores. There was no significant difference in the December easyCBM word reading frequency screener scores. The VPK students performed significantly better on the May easyCBM letter sounds screener scores. There was no significant difference in the May easyCBM phoneme-segmenting and word reading frequency screener scores. The VPK students made significant gains from the December easyCBM scores to the May easyCBM scores. There was not a significant difference in the gain scores of the VPK students and the Title 1 students who did not attend a VPK program.

As the Latino portion of the United States population continues to grow each year, more and more children in the United States leave their Spanish-speaking homes and enter English immersion schools. Throughout their lives, these children are likely to shift language preferences from their home language, to the language of the community. However, maintaining development in their first language would be a benefit to them in multiple ways. Identifying factors within bilingual homes that influence English and Spanish language development in preschool-aged children will help researchers and practitioners encourage families to cultivate the optimal learning environment. This study endeavored to identify some specific social, linguistic, and literacy-related factors within the home that predict Spanish and English language development in 4-year-old children from low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking families. Extant data from the Bilingual Early Language and Literacy Support Project (BELLS) were analyzed. Data were collected in participants' homes using various measures of the home and family environment. Results indicated children may begin to repress their first language in order to focus on learning a second language as early as 48 months. Maternal use of unique words, in Spanish, was a strong predictor of children's English expressive vocabulary, indicating that continuing to provide a rich language environment in the home language facilitates English language development. Furthermore, current measures of literacy and learning environments may be missing important behaviors present in Latino families that are distinctly different from behaviors in Caucasian families, thus making such measures inapt to predict language-related outcomes in Latino homes.

This qualitative study examined the perceptions and understandings of various stakeholders in the early childhood sector of Mississippi about kindergarten readiness in response to the implementation of more rigorous academic standards in kindergarten. The participants (N=20) in this study were parent/guardians and teachers at 2 elementary schools in Mississippi and various preschool programs that feed into them including public pre-K, private child care, and Head Start. These perceptions and understandings were compared with official documents including position statements of professional organizations and learning standards. The results of the study provide insight into the perceptions and understandings of the participants as they experience the readiness process from preschool through participation in kindergarten. The qualitative analysis showed that as more rigorous standards have been implemented in kindergarten, all stakeholder groups are experiencing high levels of pressure related to the testing and accountability requirements related to the standards. This has caused a mismatch between the stated values of kindergarten teachers and the practices they reportedly use as they shift to what I conceptualized as more environmental-behaviorist teaching methods versus the social-constructivist, play-based methods they believe to be more effective. The analysis also revealed a breakdown in communication as kindergarten teachers expect the other stakeholder groups to come to them to see what is happening in kindergarten. This is driven by a mismatch between the standards and actual practices. A surprising finding is that the perceived job satisfaction of preschool teachers seems to have improved as they see themselves in a more vital role in the readiness process. This study is organized into five chapters. Chapter I provides an overview and rationale for the study. Chapter II includes a review of the literature which includes historical perspectives about kindergarten readiness, theories of kindergarten readiness, domains of readiness, and stakeholder perspectives of kindergarten readiness. Chapter III provides the methodology for the study. Chapter IV presents the findings from the analysis of data. Chapter V provides a discussion of the findings, suggestions for future research, and implications for practice.

This dissertation investigates the ways in which pre-k teachers understood the math content that they were to teach and their math instruction. To investigate this, a qualitative case study examining five pre-k teachers was conducted. Data sources included observation field notes, teacher interviews, and documents such as state and district pre-k guidelines. The findings from this dissertation suggest that pre-k teachers’ knowledge entails both knowledge of subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge. In addition, this study identified what these pre-k teachers knew about math and teaching/learning math as well as what they still needed to know to provide high quality and effective math instruction. Chapter 1 introduces my research question and important terms, such as mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT). Chapter 2 synthesizes relevant literature in the area of effective math instruction, theoretical framework of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching and early mathematics education. The literature review seeks to highlight the importance of early childhood teachers’ deep understanding of mathematical content and of their math instruction. Chapter 3 forwards the specific conceptual framework for this study while detailing the methodology that guided this investigation including data gathering and analysis. Chapter 4 presents the findings from this research. It examines pre-k teachers’ understanding of mathematical content that they are to teach and their knowledge of how to teach mathematics. Chapter 5 addresses the significance of these two major findings. First, I discuss the four types of mathematical knowledge and skills that these pre-k teachers possess. I also compare and contrast them with the teacher knowledge examined in the literature. Then, by examining research literature on early math education, I suggest what mathematical knowledge and skills they still need to attain to offer high-quality and effective math instruction. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of implication for teachers, teacher educators, and suggestions for future research. / text

This thesis consists of three essays that explore incentives and disincentives in the U.S. social safety net. In the first essay, my coauthors and I measure the size and impact of U.S. marriage taxation. Our marriage tax measure incorporates all major federal and state taxes and transfer programs. The measure is calculated as the expected percentage loss in lifetime spending from marriage, controlling for partner choice. We find an average marriage tax of 2.69 percent that is substantially higher for low-income individuals. Exploiting state-level variation, we find that the marriage taxes strongly disincentivize marriage. Among females with children, a one percentage point increase in the marriage tax rate decreases the probability of marrying by 3.69 percentage points. The second essay evaluates the effects of free pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) programs on maternal labor force participation (LFP). Pre-K rules vary across U.S. states, and most states have income eligibility requirements. To estimate the causal effects of access to Pre-K on labor supply, we examine the change in the LFP of mothers whose child becomes age-eligible for Pre-K controlling for individual factors. We find that access to Pre-K increases overall maternal LFP by 2.3 percentage points. However, the effect is significant only for mothers with certain demographic characteristics. Our results are robust across a series of placebo tests and alternative specifications and sample restrictions. In the third essay I estimate how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) changed the returns to work and affected labor supply decisions. First, I identify three natural experiments where the ACA changed work incentives. I find that depending on the experiment and affected population, the ACA changed weekly hours worked by between -3 and +2. Next, I use an exogenous shock to effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs) introduced by the ACA as an instrument to estimate the overall labor supply elasticity. I find it to be 0.1. Using this elasticity, I estimate the aggregate effect of the ACA on work effort. I find that, in the aggregate, the ACA did not affect US labor supply. However, for some groups the effect was economically and statistically significant.

State funded preschool programs are recent phenomena in the United States and the state of Tennessee. The intent of the researcher was to explore the implementation of the preschool program in the Greene County Schools system and to develop a better understanding of the effects of this process at the classroom level. This study may provide significant information for other pre-k programs in the state of Tennessee or nationwide programs in partnership with Head Start. The preschool program in the Greene County Schools system consisted of 16 classes with nine of the classes in partnership with Head Start and one class in partnership with a community child care center. Data were collected from the transcripts of three focus groups, documents, and classroom observations. The constant comparative analysis method was used to analyze the data (Glaser, 2004; Merriam, 1998; Thorne, 2000). Triangulation of the data resulted in the identification of several supports and barriers to teaching and learning in the pre-k classrooms. Supports identified were the curriculum, the use of effective teaching strategies, specific teacher characteristics, specific rules and regulations, services provided by Head Start, and adequate program funding. Participants defined barriers to teaching and learning in the pre-k classroom as specific rules and regulations, teacher isolation by location in the school, teacher isolation from peers, the need for knowledge of early childhood education and regulations of the program, and specific components of the Head Start partnership. The recommendations of this study are to continue the partnership that allows for a powerful combination of the organizational resources between the Greene County Schools Pre-K Program and the Upper East Tennessee Human Development Agency (UETHDA) Head Start to continue. The use of an outside ECERS-R evaluator and monthly Head Start classroom evaluations should be discontinued. New practices to implement are an attendance policy for the pre-k classrooms and regularly scheduled collaboration meetings with administrators of both organizations and classroom personnel. Other districts considering similar programs should identify financial resources and use a collaborative process in the development and maintenance of the pre-k program.