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A New Approach to Sustaining Pre-K Impacts: Leveraging Naturally Occurring Lotteries to Examine a District-Wide Rollout of Instructional Alignment across Pre-K and Kindergarten

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Title: A New Approach to Sustaining Pre-K Impacts: Leveraging Naturally Occurring Lotteries to Examine a District-Wide Rollout of Instructional Alignment across Pre-K and Kindergarten
Language: English
Authors: McCormick, Meghan, Unterman, Rebecca, Pralica, Mirjana, Weiland, Christina, Weissman, Amanda, Hsueh, JoAnn, MDRC
Source: MDRC. 2022.
Availability: MDRC. 16 East 34th Street 19th Floor, New York, NY 10016-4326. Tel: 212-532-3200; Fax: 212-684-0832; e-mail: publications@mdrc.org; Web site: http://www.mdrc.org
Peer Reviewed: N
Page Count: 21
Publication Date: 2022
Sponsoring Agency: Arnold Ventures
Document Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Preschool Education
Elementary Education
Primary Education
Kindergarten
Descriptors: Public Schools, School Districts, Curriculum Development, Alignment (Education), Preschool Education, Elementary Education, Program Effectiveness, Admission (School), Competitive Selection, Primary Education, Student Characteristics, Institutional Characteristics, Kindergarten, Teacher Characteristics
Geographic Terms: Massachusetts (Boston)
Abstract: The Boston Public Schools (BPS) district is the first large school system in the United States to design and implement a curriculum and professional model--called "Focus on Early Learning"--to align instruction across its well-known, high-quality public school pre-K program and early elementary school grades. Schools opt in and can choose how much of the curriculum to adopt. Further, BPS's school assignment process combines information on parents' preferences for where they would like their child to attend pre-K. When there are more students who prefer a school than there are available spots, this process uses naturally occurring lotteries--which approximate random assignment--to determine which students are assigned to each school. As part of the Expanding Children's Early Learning Network (ExCEL) project, MDRC is partnering with with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Department of Early Childhood, the University of Michigan, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education to understand how BPS's reforms to align instruction across the early grades supported teaching and learning. The purpose of this brief is to assess the feasibility of using naturally occurring lotteries to evaluate the effects of BPS's "Focus on Early Learning" approach on students over time; results from a full impact study estimating effects on student outcomes will be released in 2023. The brief begins by presenting background information on the approach, the motivation for the study, and the project's core research aims. It then explores three issues related to the study's feasibility that are critical for determining whether lotteries can be used to answer policy-relevant questions in a rigorous way. The brief concludes by discussing whether this study is successfully set up to draw causal conclusions about the impacts of a district-wide rollout of instructional alignment across the early grades while also producing results that are generalizable--and relevant--to the broader population of BPS pre-K students and schools.
Abstractor: ERIC
Entry Date: 2022
Accession Number: ED619526
Database: ERIC
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  Data: MDRC. 16 East 34th Street 19th Floor, New York, NY 10016-4326. Tel: 212-532-3200; Fax: 212-684-0832; e-mail: publications@mdrc.org; Web site: http://www.mdrc.org
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Massachusetts+%28Boston%29%22">Massachusetts (Boston)</searchLink>
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  Data: The Boston Public Schools (BPS) district is the first large school system in the United States to design and implement a curriculum and professional model--called "Focus on Early Learning"--to align instruction across its well-known, high-quality public school pre-K program and early elementary school grades. Schools opt in and can choose how much of the curriculum to adopt. Further, BPS's school assignment process combines information on parents' preferences for where they would like their child to attend pre-K. When there are more students who prefer a school than there are available spots, this process uses naturally occurring lotteries--which approximate random assignment--to determine which students are assigned to each school. As part of the Expanding Children's Early Learning Network (ExCEL) project, MDRC is partnering with with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Department of Early Childhood, the University of Michigan, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education to understand how BPS's reforms to align instruction across the early grades supported teaching and learning. The purpose of this brief is to assess the feasibility of using naturally occurring lotteries to evaluate the effects of BPS's "Focus on Early Learning" approach on students over time; results from a full impact study estimating effects on student outcomes will be released in 2023. The brief begins by presenting background information on the approach, the motivation for the study, and the project's core research aims. It then explores three issues related to the study's feasibility that are critical for determining whether lotteries can be used to answer policy-relevant questions in a rigorous way. The brief concludes by discussing whether this study is successfully set up to draw causal conclusions about the impacts of a district-wide rollout of instructional alignment across the early grades while also producing results that are generalizable--and relevant--to the broader population of BPS pre-K students and schools.
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  BibEntity:
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 21
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Public Schools
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: School Districts
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Curriculum Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Alignment (Education)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Elementary Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Program Effectiveness
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Admission (School)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Competitive Selection
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Primary Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Characteristics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Institutional Characteristics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Kindergarten
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Teacher Characteristics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Massachusetts (Boston)
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: A New Approach to Sustaining Pre-K Impacts: Leveraging Naturally Occurring Lotteries to Examine a District-Wide Rollout of Instructional Alignment across Pre-K and Kindergarten
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