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The NJ Supreme Court’s mandate for high quality preschool in the State’s urban
school districts is yielding major gains in school readiness skills for the
State’s most disadvantaged children. This finding is contained in The
Effects of New Jersey’s Abbott Preschool Program on Young Children’s School
Readiness,
a new study by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)
at Rutgers University.
In Abbott v. Burke V (1998), the high court ordered the State to provide
all three- and four-year-old children residing in urban or "Abbott" districts,
with well-planned, high quality preschool to ensure a thorough and efficient
education under the State’s constitution. Education Law Center (ELC) is counsel
to the Abbott school children.
The NIEER study measured the effects of attending the Abbott pre-k program
at age 4 for 2,072 entering kindergarteners in 21 school districts. Using an
innovative research model, regression-discontinuity design, the study found
marked improvement in the early language, literacy, and math skills for children
who participated in the Abbott pre-k program. The study’s authors note that
results may in fact be an estimate of two years of pre-k, since most children
start the Abbott program at age 3, and that a measure of the effects of two
years could be larger. NIEER plans to address in subsequent reports the impact
of two years of preschool in the Abbott program.
The Abbott pre-k program evaluation found that children who attended the program
at age 4:
- Increased receptive vocabulary scores by an additional four months, a particularly
significant finding since this measure is strongly predictive of general
cognitive abilities.
- Increased scores on measures of early math skills by 24 percent over the
course of the year.
- Increased print awareness scores by 61 percent over the course of the year
-- children who attended the program know more letters, more letter-sound
associations, and are more familiar with words and book concepts at entry
to kindergarten.
The evaluation found no statistically significant effect of the Abbott program
on phonological awareness.
The New Jersey study is part of a larger multi-state evaluation conducted
by NIEER of the effects of state-funded pre-k programs in five states -- Michigan,
New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia. Children in each of
these states showed significant gains in school readiness, regardless of ethnicity
or economic background. In New Jersey, NIEER plans to conduct future studies
of the impact of the Abbott preschool program.
For more information about the Abbott preschool program, contact Ellen Boylan
at (973) 624-1815, ext. 18, or by email at eboylan@edlawcenter.org.
Prepared: December 7, 2005
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