Students who attend pre-kindergarten programs offered by public schools perform better academically through high school than those in family-based child care, according to new research from Florida International University (FIU).
Researchers compared three preschool settings that the children attended prior to elementary school — public school pre-K, center-based daycares and home-based child cares that were part of the state’s Early Learning Coalition — and found that while all programs met minimum requirements, public school pre-K programs were the only ones that required teachers to hold a college degree. Their findings suggest this lone factor can make a substantial difference for low-income and Hispanic students, who made up a significant proportion of the student population included in the study.
“They had more education and probably higher-quality teachers,” Charles Bleiker, FIU associate professor of teaching and learning and co-author of the report, said in a statement. “It really tests the idea that having better-trained teachers or better curricula actually helps these kids. Critics often say teachers don’t need to be highly educated to teach young children, that it’s just babysitting and a waste of money. Our data says otherwise.”
The study followed 400,000 Miami-Dade County public school students starting in third grade and monitored them through high school. Students who attended public school pre-K performed better on standardized tests and earned higher grades throughout their academic careers, persisting into adolescence.
According to the findings, children who attended public school pre-K were 35 percent less likely to be retained in third grade than those who attended family child care.
Bleiker noted that part of the benefit stems from teachers not only having a college degree, but from their training in developmental psychology and classroom management which better equips them to handle behavioral challenges.
“It makes a huge difference if you’ve been trained,” Bleiker said. “Novice teachers without formal training struggle more. Some of these were mom-and-pop centers hiring people who aren’t fully qualified to teach. If a child spends those formative years in time out, watching videos or being herded around, rather than being stimulated, these experiences spill over. They reach kindergarten not ready academically, socially or emotionally.”
