Volume 2 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 23

Journal of K-12 Educational Research 21 A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF PRE-K EDUCATION ON A LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT James Alton Howard, Ed.D. Journal of K-12 Educational Research 2018, VOL. 2, ISSUE 1 www.dbu.edu/doctoral/edd Introduction By the time children from low-income families enter kindergar - ten, many are already far behind children from higher-income families. Some will never catch up (Blank & Schulman, 2014). Blank and Schulman (2014) report that by the age of three, children from the lowest-income families have heard 30 million fewer words and many times display only half the vocabulary of their middle-income peers. However, with a high quality early education program, these seemingly insurmountable odds can be overcome. In today’s world of high stakes testing, many times the students who are in tested grade levels receive the best teachers in the building. In an elementary setting, building administra - tors realize that their evaluation is based on the success of state mandated tests. However, a great deal of research has been done which states that the most critical learning stage for most students actually takes place between the ages of three and five years of age (Raikes, 2004). The Harvard Family Research Project (2015), a group designed to advocate for the advancement of early child- hood literacy programs throughout the country, has discovered that by focusing on the development of children during their early cognitive stages there is a direct correlation between accelerated academic enhancement and future academic success. This leads many researchers in the field to suggest that there is a high return on investment in early education programs (Raikes, 2004). With countless studies citing the benefits of early childhood education (Barnett, 2008; Gormley, 2014; Pinata, & Wolcott, 2014; Sanborn et al., 2014), a question begs to be asked: Why is universal pre-kindergarten not mandatory in all 50 states? Cur - rently, Texas serves just 51.4% of students who are four years of age (Barnett, Carolan, Fitzgerald, & Squires, 2012). Literature Review Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2015b) claimed, “I believe that every single child deserves the opportu - nity for a strong start in life through high quality preschool, and expanding those opportunities must be part of ESEA” (Elemen - tary and Secondary Education Act, p.1). According to the U.S Department of Education (2015a), each year approximately 4 million children enter kindergarten in the United States. The hope for all parents is that their child is prepared for the academic rigor he or she will face for the next 12 years. Many parents have sought to improve the learning opportunities of their children through private high quality early childhood education, yet many children of poverty have a difficult time accessing these services (U.S Department of Education, 2015a). In the United States during the 2012-2013 school year, there were 4,112,347 students who were 4-years old. Twenty-eight percent were enrolled in a state run preschool, 10% were in a federally funded Head Start Program, 3% were enrolled in a special education preschool program, and 59% of 4-year-olds did not receive any type of early childhood education. In the states of Florida, Oklahoma, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, more than 70% of their 4-year-olds are served by a publicly funded preschool program. In contrast, 11 states–Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington–serve fewer than 10% of 4-year- olds in a publicly funded preschool program (U.S Department of Education, 2015a). In in 2012-2013, Texas had 397,272 4-year- olds. Fifty-two percent of them were enrolled in a state funded preschool program, 9% were enrolled in a federal Head Start program, 1% were enrolled in a special education program, and