Early Learning to Third Grade

High quality matters in early education through elementary school. Simply put, it is the only way we will see results. Each year of a child’s education should build upon the next. The most promising and effective models focus on:

• Curriculum aligned from preschool to third grade that focuses on building skills from year to year
• Professional development & coaching for teachers
• Classroom quality
• Teacher-child interactions
• Assessment & data that shows progress and areas to improve
• Longitudinal data

Fadeout studies give us an opportunity to understand why some programs are effective and why some are not.

• Focus on the kindergarten through third grade experience and continuity between early education and the elementary school years.
• Implement models with fidelity and greater quality control.
• Ensure the same level of quality exists in early education and our neighborhood elementary schools.
• Show children are better off with longitudinal data from preschool through third grade.

It is time to build a system that ensures continuity between early education and third grade.

Boston and Dallas are changing the traditional approach and seeing results.

Boston Schools Shift to More Play-Based, Kid-Led Curriculum in Early Grades

A Recipe for Closing the Opportunity Gap from PK-3 from Dallas ISD

Dallas Independent School District’s thoughtful, thorough, and data-informed implementation of CLASS creates benefits that reverberate from pre-k through early elementary and beyond.

In Building Early Education Leaders, New America takes a closer look at how states and districts are equipping principals to support young learners.

A March 2021 report by Lynn Olsen and Brooke Lepage of Georgetown University’s FutureEd documents the incoherent, misaligned web of early learning assessments that are costly, challenging to administer and proven to be misused or neglected altogether by policy makers.  Tough Test – The Nation’s Troubled Early Learning Assessment Landscape.