Measuring Success in Early Childhood Education:

School Readiness: What Do We Know?

John C. Kresslein

Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world.

Maria Montessori

Introduction

Children, it is often said, are our most precious resource. Societies are said to be judged on the treatment they accord to their most fragile—the very old, the very ill, and the very young. That they should be nurtured and protected seems to be an obvious moral imperative. In the United States, the nurturing and protection of young children originates, in the first instance, with parents and families. Yet, the prevalence of “single-parent heads of households” coupled with economic restructuring, changes in social welfare policies, and the demands of accountability testing beginning in grade 3 have come together and forced many educators and policy makers to re-think their approach to early childhood education and the role it plays in society. In South Carolina, 38%, more than one-third, of all children live in households headed by a single-parent. Forty percent of South Carolina children are living in families below 200 percent of the federal poverty level; and most of those children are in families with at least one parent who is employed full-time, year-round. Another 29% have at least one parent employed part-time or part of the year. Only 18% of children in low-income families do not have an employed parent.[1] South Carolina has the 7^th highest percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch, with 52% of the students in our schools eligible. South Carolina ranks 43^rd in per capita income and has the 12^th highest overall poverty rate in the country. The state ranks 10^th in the nation in birth rates among teens. South Carolina has the 4^th highest percentage of low-birth weight babies, increasing the initial costs of care for these children and enhancing the likelihood that these children will experience delays in physical and cognitive development. Whatever challenges await these children whose lives are directly impacted by the realities that these statistics represent, surely the ability to begin school equipped with the skills necessary to learn ranks among the most significant in their young lives.

This article looks at what is known about “school readiness,” why it is a matter of not only personal, but also societal concern, and what lessons exist for policy makers. Subsequent sections address the meaning of school readiness, why it is a matter of interest and concern, and the lessons to be learned by policy makers. The last section will include a discussion about a recently completed initiative by 17 states who participated in a comprehensive study of school readiness indicators.

What Does It Mean to Be “Ready for School?”

“School readiness” is a condition that encompasses the tools, experts generally agree, that children should possess in order to be able to take advantage of the learning opportunities that await them when they enter the school system. Minogue (2004) summarizes the consensus that has emerged among many early childhood leaders who now understand readiness to encompass three components: a school’s readiness for children; children’s readiness for school; and the capacity of families and communities to provide developmental opportunities for their young children.[2] Five areas of development contribute to a child’s readiness to learn in a more structured school environment than that which exists even in the typical pre-school setting:

Physical well-being and motor development to include such matters as health status, physical abilities, and conditions before and after birth.
Social and emotional development to include children’s ability to interact with others and their perceptions of themselves and their ability to understand and interpret feelings.
Approaches to learning to include a child’s inclination to use skills, knowledge, and capacities.
Language development—including verbal language such as speaking and listening skills and emerging literacy, including print, story sense, and writing process.
Cognition and general knowledge that require a child to display knowledge about properties of particular objects, identify similarities and differences, and make associations. This also includes knowledge of such things as shapes, spatial relations, and number concepts.[3]

Ideally, children develop these skills through the careful nurturing of parents and other caregivers. Many will also benefit from enrollment in early childhood programs—the accessibility, quality, and cost of which varies considerably. Nevertheless, early childhood education encompasses a variety of programs for children from birth to age 8.[4] These programs take place in a variety of settings: schools; churches; private, child care homes; and larger, child care centers. Bowman (1993) refers to the many “voices” in the early childhood education literature, each articulating the interests of different stakeholders, educators, public officials, health and human services providers, parents, citizens, and researchers themselves.[5]

Most, but not all, government-sponsored early childhood programs are targeted to children determined to be “at-risk” by virtue of their economic circumstances. For example, Congress created Head Start in 1965, as one of the weapons in the War on Poverty. Housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start programs for South Carolina in 2004 were allocated $81.7 million to serve 12,248 children. Here and across the country, Head Start programs are administered by an array of community-based nonprofit organizations and local school systems.[6]

In South Carolina, the State Department of Education is the lead state agency for early childhood education. However, in June 1999, the General Assembly created First Steps to School Readiness, South Carolina’s comprehensive, “multi-component” early childhood initiative. It relies on a network of state/local and public/private partnerships to respond to school readiness needs that are locally defined. First Steps is charged with improving the efficiency and coordination of existing services to children ages 0 to 5 years and their families, and by providing new services where service gaps exist. Consistent with the multi-dimensional aspect of school readiness, South Carolina’s First Steps is commissioned to support programs that serve to nurture, promote, and coordinate programs in such diverse areas as child care, parenting skill development, family literacy, and children’s health. Section 59-152-30 of the South Carolina Code of Laws, 1976, as amended, affirms the following goals for First Steps:

(1) Provide parents with access to support they might seek and want to strengthen their families and to promote the optimal development of their preschool children;

(2) Increase comprehensive services so children have reduced risk for major physical, developmental, and learning problems;

(3) Promote high quality preschool programs that provide a healthy environment that will promote normal growth and development;

(4) Provide services so all children receive the protection, nutrition, and health care necessary to thrive in the early years of life so they arrive at school ready to learn;

(5) Mobilize communities to focus efforts on providing enhanced services to support families and their young children to enable every child to reach school healthy and ready to learn.

The legislation authorizing First Steps is noteworthy for its emphasis on coordination of services available to young children and their families, collaboration through partnerships and sharing of resources, and accountability. A 2003 evaluation of First Steps described the program’s dual function: to improve the school readiness of all South Carolina’s children and to address the needs of at-risk children and their families.[7] Consistent with its dual mission and the goals laid out in the original legislation, First Steps has supported efforts undertaken by its county partners to implement programs in 4-year old kindergarten, summer enrichment, child care, parenting/family strengthening programs, and health programs.

Why is School Readiness a Matter for Public Policy Consideration?

Government entered the sphere of early childhood education for the same reason it entered the sphere of public education policy. Free and democratic societies have a vested interest in seeing that citizens acquire the appropriate literacy and communications skills necessary to make informed decisions in their personal and public lives. In the modern era, with the benefit of data and sound research, society is acutely aware of the personal and social costs associated with educational impoverishment. Lack of education and fundamental literacy skills are associated with a variety of social and economic ills.

While children considered “at-risk” by virtue of their family circumstances are not necessarily doomed to economic and educational impoverishment, overwhelming evidence exists that these children are at greater risk than those whose financial circumstances are not as fragile. Children of poverty, for example, are more likely to enter school without the fundamental skills that make them “ready to learn” than are other children whose circumstances are not so financially challenged. A recently released report prepared by Rhode Island KIDS COUNT (2005) concluded that children from low-income families are more likely to start school with limited language skills, health problems, and social and emotional problems that interfere with learning.[8] This translates very quickly into a noticeable performance difference that has come to be known as the “achievement gap.” Haskins and Rouse (2005) conclude that studies have consistently shown that poor and minority children have already fallen behind well before they enter public schools.[9] For Haskins and Rouse, the fact that so many of these children have fallen behind their peers even before they have entered the public schools represents a “breach of the nation’s commitment to equality of opportunity because children who score poorly on tests of intellectual skills during the preschool years do less well in elementary and high school and are more likely to drop out of school, become teen parents, engage in criminal activities, suffer from unemployment, and/or suffer clinical depression as adults.”[10]

While children and families are immediately affected by the consequences of these realities, society itself is weakened. Economic survival depends, in the final analysis, on a society’s capacity to learn and adapt. In this economy, no reasonable person disputes the claim that workers must not only work harder, they must work “smarter.” Economic success for individuals and society as a whole hinges on the capacity to develop workers who possess not only the skills needed today, but skills yet to be identified but necessary for tomorrow. Very simply, society needs workers able and willing to re-learn over time. Moreover, the pace of technological change demands that citizens in a democratic society be capable of sifting through volumes of information on a regular basis, distinguishing between that which is flawed and erroneous and that which is valid and reasonable. Children today must be prepared for their own futures more than any generation to date. The extent to which society is obligated to provide those opportunities is a matter for debate. However, no one can reasonably dispute the claim that society has a vested interest in ensuring that the nurturing and development of its children into healthy, productive adults does occur. Early childhood experts, educators, and policy makers concur that the first five years are critical to any child’s life. The earliest experiences set the stage for future development and success in school and throughout one’s life. Those experiences influence brain development, establish the neural connections that provide the foundation for language development, reasoning, problem solving, social skills, behavior, and emotional health.

The connection between education and economic development has been made not only in South Carolina but in every other state, the nation, and across the globe. In fact, globalization of the economy has only made the connection between education and economics even more acute. As South Carolina and the nation compete in worldwide markets, education provides that competitive edge necessary to sustain and enhance economic growth and increase per capita income and overall standards of living. In remarks at Boston College in 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan emphasized that “research on wealth creation…strongly suggests that it is the knowledge and the skill of our population interacting with the rule of law that determines our real incomes, irrespective of the specific jobs in which these incomes are earned and irrespective of the proportion of domestic consumption met by imports.” [11] Finally, the emphasis on standardized testing that has accompanied the education accountability movement has made educators and others uneasy about the quality of students entering kindergarten and first grade.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), with its strenuous testing requirements, has resulted in many educators feeling pressure, pressure which then translates into concern about what exactly is occurring in early childhood education programs. At best, NCLB has an indirect—albeit real—effect on early childhood educators, the children who are served, and the policy makers who are called upon to provide financial support. The Education Commission of the States describes the implications of NCLB on the field of early learning. NCLB affects early learning because of its emphasis on adequate yearly progress (AYP), highly qualified teachers, and reading/literacy. While NCLB does not mandate testing in the early grades or certainly in early childhood programs, some early childhood professionals are concerned that the emphasis on accountability could result, at some point, in assessment of younger children. Others believe that NCLB’s emphasis on testing beginning with the third grade could provide opportunities for states to focus more on their early childhood opportunities to ensure that those programs are equipped to provide the level of instruction necessary to prepare all children for kindergarten and first grade.

NCLB does not require that early childhood educators meet the standards of becoming “highly qualified” unless a state includes early childhood or pre-kindergarten as part of its elementary and secondary school system. Other than that, the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development (ECEPD) Program is the only teaching quality provision of NCLB that applies to early childhood educators. The program provides competitive grants to partnerships providing high quality professional development to early childhood educators working with children from birth through kindergarten entry who come from low-income families in “high-need” communities. The partnership must include one or more public agency, Head Start grantee or private organization.

NCLB also authorizes “Early Reading First,” a grant program aimed at improving reading skills of children from low-income families, by focusing on professional development activities and requiring research-based curriculum and assessments.[12]

Finally, a report released by the National Governors Association following the Governor’s Forum on Quality Preschool in 2003 reaffirmed that “today’s children are growing up in an increasingly complex, competitive, and interconnected world…. Today’s five-year olds are being asked to do more in kindergarten than previous generations. Kindergarten is no longer preparation for school; it is school.”[13] The NGA reiterated the position of the National Education Goals Panel more than a decade earlier which had recognized the multiple dimensions of school readiness and the importance of ensuring high quality preparation for all children. The NGA recognized that today most young children spend much of their time in non-parental care. That fact, combined with the conditions and circumstances discussed earlier, has resulted in more than 40 states investing in preschools, often, though not exclusively, targeted to low-income children and at-risk students. Given the stakes and the financial commitment in excess of $2 billion, states have a vested interest in ensuring that early childhood programs are of the highest quality and are equipped to prepare children for kindergarten.

Lessons for Policy Makers

Few would disagree that parents are primarily responsible for getting their children ready to learn once they enter a school setting—whether that setting is a public, parochial or other private school, or a home-schooled environment. Yet, research has shown that public investment in early childhood education to enhance school readiness, yields dividends. Moreover, the first national education goals established in 1990 stated that “all children start ready to learn.” Many have argued that this statement recognizes a need to ensure that all young people, regardless of circumstances that undermine their nurturing and development, should at least have opportunities to enhance their growth and development. The State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network[14] emphasizes the following key points about school readiness with which policy makers should be familiar:

■ The Earliest Years Count. While the first years do not necessarily “dictate” what a child will become, neurological evidence strongly suggests that much of the brain’s actual growth occurs and vital connections within the brain are made within the first two years of life. This period of time is critical to social and emotional development. In short, the first years are incredibly dynamic, a period during which a child’s brain is, in fact, being “wired” through a network of neural pathways.

■ Nurture (and Nature) Matter. Research and common sense confirm that all children have an essential need for a safe and healthy environment. Children require competent parenting, health and nutrition, age appropriate guidance and instruction, and constant, appropriate supervision. Policies tailored to address these needs have been proposed over the years and, in many cases adopted, include parenting education, home visits, and family support; health insurance coverage, primary and preventive health care, nutrition services, and special education services; pre-school programs, including enriched pre-school for children from more economically challenged families; and quality early care and education, and family and medical leave.

■ School Readiness is Multidimensional. There is no single track to school readiness. No single prescription can be offered. Much occurs to stimulate a child’s growth and development during these formative years; and research has shown that a number of interrelated dimensions of growth and learning occur during these early years. The National Education Goals Panel, established in 1990 and since abolished, identified four separate dimensions of school readiness related to 1) physical well-being and motor development; social and emotional development; 2) language development including verbal language and emerging literacy; 3) approaches to learning such as enthusiasm, curiosity, and persistence in completing tasks; and 4) cognition and general knowledge, including spatial relations and number concepts. Physical, social, and emotional development affects the extent to which children pay attention, follow instructions, and get along with others-social skills fundamental to learning.

■ School Un-readiness Costs. While many children start school equipped with tools to enhance the likelihood of success, many others do not. While the child assumes the lion’s share of the initial costs associated with having unmet needs, society will eventually incur costs as well. They include: higher health costs necessary to address unmet healthcare needs; special education and grade retention costs in the early years; juvenile delinquency and remediation costs in middle and high school years; school failure, reduced earnings, and taxpaying ability, coupled with potentially higher welfare costs in early adult years; and juvenile justice and adult crime costs. According to the State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network (SECPTAN), “up to half of school problems and eventual dropouts start with children entering school developmentally behind.” [15]

■ Parents Work. The simple fact of life is that the structure of modern family life has changed over the past 35 years. The fact that the percentage of mothers with young children who are in the workforce has doubled is a testament not only to the kinds of choices women have consciously made during this period, but also to the structural changes in the economy which demand two incomes to meet the financial needs of young families. In 1970, 30.8% of all mothers of young children aged 0-5 worked outside the home. By 2000, that percentage had doubled to 61.9%. In 2000, slightly more than one-third of all families (36.0%) with at least one child under five earned less than 185% of the federal poverty level, which for a family of three was $26,200. For such families, working outside the home is not always a “choice” but a necessity.

■ Quality Matters. Research shows a simple, yet often unrecognized fact. The quality of early childhood programs in health and nutrition, parenting and family support services, child care, and pre-school education does matter.

■ Investments in School Readiness Initiatives Pays Dividends. Advocates of investment in high quality early childhood initiatives point to returns on those investments in the form of higher student achievement, reduced need for special education services, and reduced demands placed on the juvenile justice system. Thus, the policy network has endorsed increased public investment in high quality early childhood initiatives.

The idea that investments in early childhood education yield returns is an argument espoused by virtually everyone who has analyzed the merits of these programs, including, but not limited to, childhood education advocates, the National Governors Association, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Advocates of public investment in school readiness initiatives are anxious to measure returns on investments in monetary terms that allow them to move beyond the qualitative evaluations that generally accompany calls for such investments. Bruner (2004) observes that “when policymakers, advocates, and program directors evaluate programs through the lens of these economic returns, they can more confidently enlist support for programs, assess the relative value of different types of programmatic investments, and even redirect or invest identified savings into program expansion.”[16] Three models illustrative of the return on the investment in early childhood policy emphasize results emanating from: 1) improved child growth and development; 2) returns related to the economic impact of the early childhood industry on society; and 3) returns related to adult human capital development.[17]

In considering the return on investment that positively impacted child growth and development, four studies are often cited: the Elmira Prenatal/Early Infancy Project, the Carolina Abecedarian Project, the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, and the Chicago Child-Parent Centers. The Elmira study, conducted in New York, was a controlled study initiated in 1977, which measured the benefits of nurse home visits to 324 low-income, unmarried women and their first-born children. The Carolina Abecedarian project was also a controlled study in which 57 infants from low-income families were randomly assigned to receive early intervention in a high quality child care setting and 54 others were assigned to a non-treated control group. The High/Scope Perry Research project examined the lives of 123 African-American children born into poverty and at high risk of failing in school. From 1962-1967, at ages 3 and 4, children were randomly divided into a program group who received a high quality preschool program based on High/Scope’s participatory learning approach and a comparison group who received no preschool program. The Chicago-Parent Centers studies focused on the long-term effects of a comprehensive preschool program for low-income children. Together these studies represent a body of longitudinal analysis affirming positive returns on initial investments. Most of the benefits occurred over the long-term, accruing to participating children once they reached adulthood. The fact that investigators could identify positive results only after years of experience mitigates against the notion that any “savings benefits” can be captured and immediately redeployed into the early childhood program or other policy initiative.

Other supporters of early childhood education point to the economic impact of the industry itself, through expenditures for salaries and goods and services. The multiplier effect of money expended on early childhood programs is fairly large in relation to other local investments.[18] A study on the economic impact of the child care industry in Rhode Island on that state’s economy found that the overall economic impact of was estimated to be approximately $400 million.[19]

The impact of such investments on developing adult human capital is seen as the least researched among the three economic models. When residents are trained to become childhood providers, thus increasing their skill levels and compensation, an area or location experiences an increase in the value of adult human capital above and beyond what had existed before.[20] The economic impact of high quality early childhood programs was recognized by the National Governors Association’s Task Force on School Readiness which issued 16 recommendations in its 2005 task force report. Clearly, the nation’s governors have recognized the importance of high quality early childhood education, even if they disagree on the extent to which government should be involved or the approach that government might take even if it is involved. Among the key recommendations are the following:

Develop a vision and strategic plan for school readiness that considers the role of families, schools, and communities and that addresses the developmental needs of children beginning before birth to kindergarten and beyond.
Build a comprehensive and coordinated statewide system for school readiness.
Ensure accountability for results across agencies and between state and local levels.
Support schools, families, and communities in facilitating the transition of young children into the kindergarten environment.
Align state early learning standards with K-3 standards.
Support elementary schools in providing high quality learning environments for all children.
Promote local collaboration and needs assessment for school readiness.
Assist community leaders in tracking school readiness outcomes.
Seek community input in statewide planning efforts.
Support parents in their primary role as their children’s first teachers.
Promote safe, stable, and economically secure families.
Address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse families.
Ensure that all young children from birth to age five have access to high quality care and learning opportunities at home and in other settings.
Provide comprehensive services for infants and toddlers.
Expand high-quality voluntary pre-kindergarten opportunities for three-and four-year olds.
Address the school readiness needs of children in foster care and children with special needs.

Given the level of support that exists for early childhood education and the commitment, to date, policy makers now need valid, reliable, timely, and accurate data to inform them about where the investments are most necessary and in what dollar amounts. Experience in South Carolina and across the country has proven that indicators that measure children’s well-being can be an important tool in informing the policy debate.

At the moment, though, there is no recognized measure of school readiness in broad use that can describe the developmental status of children at the time of school entry. There is little support for using an assessment instrument to determine admittance to school. Thus, there is no baseline information (a measure at a point in time that can be used as a basis for comparison with future points in time) or other benchmark (a specific target for that measure to be achieved at a specific future point in time) that can tell us, for example, what the children in our state “look like” when they are “ready for school,” much less, how our children compare to their peers across the country. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education, “assessment” is defined as:

The process of observing, recording, and otherwise documenting the work children do and how they do it, as a basis for a variety of educational decisions that affect the child, including planning for groups and individual children and communicating with parents. Assessment encompasses the many forms of evaluation available to education decision-making. [21] [Emphasis added].

This is not to say that schools are without instruments for measuring child development. Critics of assessments to determine admittance cite three reasons for their opposition: 1) the assessment tools are not multi-dimensional or the assessments were not performed so as to discriminate well among children; 2) child growth and development is widely varied, uneven, and rapid, and not amenable to such a “point in time” measurement approach that could have long-term meaning and significance; and 3) the stigmas attached to holding children back or labeling could have negative impacts that far exceed any, as yet unproven, benefit from using the assessment tools as instruments with which to determine whether a child will be admitted to school.[22]

All children find themselves the subject of assessments over the years. There are many reasons other than to determine school readiness. For example, newborns or young children might undergo appropriate assessments if they are at-risk for developmental disabilities. Assessment in the early weeks, months, and years of life is conducted to evaluate or measure the course of a young child’s development. Some children are assessed to determine if the child needs to be placed in a particular program. Subsequent progress by the child can then be assessed. Controversy has surrounded some of the purposes for early childhood assessments. Conflict surrounds the reasons for assessing young children, the tools with which children are assessed, and the uses to which results are applied.[23] According to Wortman (1997) assessments should serve as a convenient and useful tool for teachers in designing a developmentally appropriate curriculum of instruction for the child. Considered inappropriate are assessments comprised of standardized test scores used to compare teachers, school, and school districts; and the use of screening, readiness, or other test instruments to place children in programs, to retain children, or to deny them access to pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, or first grade.[24]

Critics of assessments and standardized tests administered to young children argue that little is learned from such assessments. In fact, critics who challenge the validity and reliability of assessments argue that such assessments can be used to determine a child’s relative level of achievement at the moment, but can not be used to draw any inference about what that child could likely achieve in the future. Such controversies consume students of early childhood education and testing moguls. For the policy maker focused primarily on whether to fund a particular school readiness initiative, such debates could ring hollow. What then is the decision maker to do?

The National School Readiness Indicators Initiative, “Making Progress for Young Children,” is a multi-state initiative involving 17 states,[25] representatives from which came together to develop sets of indicators at the state level to track results for children from birth through age 8. Teams from the participating states worked also to increase capacity to obtain and use data, develop communications strategies, and inform a school readiness policy agenda. Teams produced state-level reports on the set of indicators selected by their state team. Teams also agreed on a core set of common indicators that had emerged from their efforts. Indicators are organized around components which, taken together, shape the extent to which children are prepared for school. The framework for the “Ready Child Equation” appears below:

Ready Families + Ready Communities + Ready Services + Ready Schools = Children Ready for School.

The Ready Child Equation reflects education leaders’ understanding of three interrelated components: children’s readiness for school, school’s readiness for children, and the capacity of families and communities to provide developmental opportunities for their young children. Using this view of school readiness, team leaders created the “Ready Child Equation” to illustrate the range of components that influence children’s ability to be ready for school.

“Ready families” describes children’s family context and home environment. “Ready communities” describes the community resources and supports available to families with young children. “Ready services” describes the availability, quality, and affordability of proven programs that influence child development and school readiness. “Ready schools” describes the elements of schools that influence child development and school resources.[26]

What emerged from this effort were 23 core indicators of school readiness and emerging indicators which were difficult to measure and track at the state level, notwithstanding their being critically important to the school readiness of young children. Core indicators share the following characteristics: each is identified by multiple states as a high priority; each reflects conditions that can be altered or changed through state actions; change in one or more indicators will influence school readiness; and each is currently measurable using state and local data.

Table. Core Indicators of School Readiness

Component	Core Indicators	Measures
Ready Children	Physical well-being and motor development	% of children with age-appropriate fine motor skills
	Social and emotional development	% of children who often or very often exhibit positive social behaviors when interacting with peers
	Approaches to learning	% of kindergarten students with moderate to serious difficulty following directions
	Language development	% of children almost always recognizing relationships between letters and sounds at kindergarten entry
	Cognition and general knowledge	% of children recognizing basic shapes at kindergarten entry
Ready Families	Mother's educational level	% of births to mothers with less than a 12th grade education
	Births to teens	Number of births to teens ages 15-17 per 1,000 females
	Child abuse and neglect	Rate of substantiated child abuse and neglect among children from birth to age 6
	Children in foster care	% of children to age 6 in out-of-home placement (foster care) who have no more than two placements in a 24-month period
Ready Communities	Young children in poverty	% of children under age 6 living in families with income below federal poverty level
	Supports for families with infants and toddlers	% of infants and toddlers in poverty enrolled in Head Start
	Lead poisoning	% of children under age 6 with blood lead levels at or above 10 micrograms per deciliter
Ready Services-Health	Health insurance	% of children under age 6 without health insurance
	Low birth weight infants	% of infants born weighing less than 2,500 grams (5.5 lbs.)
	Access to prenatal care	% of births to women who receive late or no prenatal care
	Immunizations	% of children ages 19-35 months who have been fully immunized
Ready Services-Early Care and Education	Children enrolled in an early education program	% of 3- and 4-year olds in center-based child care and education program (including child care centers, nursery schools, preschool programs, Head Start programs, and pre-kindergarten programs)
	Early education teacher credentials	% of childhood teachers with a bachelor's degree and specialized training in early childhood education
	Accredited child care centers	% of child care centers accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
	Accredited family child care homes	% of family child care homes accredited by the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)
	Access to child care subsidies	% of eligible children under age 6 receiving child care subsidies
Ready Schools	Class size	Average teacher/child ratio in K-1 classrooms
	Fourth grade reading scores	% of children with reading proficiency in fourth grade as measured by state proficiency tests

Indicators such as those identified in the Table above have the potential to inform decision makers and, as such, become a powerful tool in policy development when they are selected based on three specific criteria:

1) Relevance—The indicator describes a behavior, condition, or status that influences a child’s school readiness.

2) Measurability—The indicator must be subject to measurement in changes over time at the state level and, ideally, at the county, city, town, and/or neighborhood level.

3) Communication power—Changes in the indicator can be used to tell a story compelling enough to inform policy decisions.[27]

The fact that states even embarked on the initiative is evidence of a critical need for timely and accurate performance measures. Tracking indicators will have the added benefit of instilling a sense of ownership and accountability, especially for the trends that become evident as the indicators are tracked over time.[28]

Conclusion

School readiness is now at the forefront of the policy agenda. School readiness is a multi-faceted condition affected by a variety of circumstances some of which are beyond the control of government, and others of which are beyond the control of parents. All are beyond the control of the children. Many will argue that preparing children for school is of sufficient value in and of itself. The idea that children come to school equipped with fundamental cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills should, they say, be sufficient justification for investing in school readiness. Yet, early childhood education advocates also point to economic studies that strongly suggest the advantage of investing in early childhood education and school readiness initiatives, particularly, though not exclusively to “at-risk” children as a way to improve subsequent academic performance and, ultimately, the economic and social environment. The social costs associated with our failure to get children ready to learn, the education accountability movement and testing requirements, and economic restructuring which has made the ability to learn, have combined to make early childhood education an important weapon in the state and nation’s economic development arsenal. As states begin to look more closely at the impact they are making there is a critical need for indicators. Indicators allow them to target scarce resources into areas offering the most optimal return. The National School Readiness Indicators Initiative represents a critical step in that direction.

References

Bowman, B. (1993). Early childhood education. Review of Research in Education Vol. 19: 101.

Bruner, C. (2004). Many happy returns: three economic models that make the case for school readiness. Resource Brief. Des Moines, IA: State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network.

Bruner, C. and Coperman, A. (2003, March). Measuring children’s school readiness: options for developing state baselines and benchmarks. A paper prepared for the State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network.

Bruner, C., Floyd, S., and Copeman, A. (2005, January). Seven things legislators (and other policy makers) need to know about school readiness: revised and expanded toolkit. Des Moines, IA: State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network.

Bryant, E. and Walsh, C. (2005). States use indicators of school readiness to improve public policies for young children. National Center for Children in Poverty. Retrieved October 26, 2005 from www.nccp.org/pub_fal02j.html.

Child Trends. (n/d). First Steps and further steps: early outcomes and lessons learned from South Carolina’s School Readiness Initiative.1999-2002 Program Evaluation Report. Executive Summary. Child Trends.

Greenspan, A. (2004). Remarks prepared for Boston College Finance Conference 2004. Boston, MA.

Halle, T., et al. (2000, December). Background for community-level work on school readiness: a review of definitions, assessments, and investment strategies. Final Report of the Knight Foundation. Executive Summary. Child Trends.

Haskins, R. and Rouse, C. (2005, Spring). Closing achievement gaps: the future of children. Policy Brief. Princeton-Brookings.

Kauerz, K. and McMaken, J. (2004, June). No Child Left Behind brief: implications for the early learning field. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.

KIDS COUNT. (2005, February). Getting ready: Findings from the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative: a 17-state partnership. Prepared by KIDS COUNT Rhode Island.

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About the Author

Jack Kresslein, B.A., M.P.A., is a senior research associate with the Institute for Public Service and Policy Research. He is a 1977 graduate of Lynchburg College and earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of South Carolina in 1979. Jack has held faculty appointments at the University of Southern Mississippi, and Georgia State University and has served as an adjunct instructor for the University of South Carolina and Midlands Technical College. Jack was a project coordinator and compliance review manager for the State Reorganization Commission from 1989-1998. From 1998-2001 he served on the staff of the Senate Education Committee and from 2001-2004 the staff of the Senate Education Committee. He has served as a consultant in education policy and education finance. He has published numerous articles and manuscripts in the areas of public finance, human resources management, information resources management, and education reform. Mr. Kresslein can be reached at jkressle@gwm.sc.edu.