“The achievement gap can be considerably minimized with exposure to high-quality pre-kindergarten.”
Closing Achievement Gaps: Future of Children Policy Brief, Spring 2005
The achievement gap refers to a significant disparity in educational success between groups of children: lowincome and minority children as compared to higher-income and non-minority children. The achievement gap exists when children enter kindergarten. Current educational policy has focused on measures in K-12 education to alleviate the achievement gap such as high curriculum standards, reduced class sizes, higher teacher quality, and test-based accountability. However, the achievement gap continues to persist. On a national level, the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ National Report Card shows that white and high-income children have consistently outperformed minority and low-income children on math and reading tests from 1992 to 2005.1 Research demonstrates that high-quality pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten are promising strategies to reduce this achievement gap in order to improve student achievement, reduce remedial education costs, strengthen schools, and increase district performance.
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Reprinted with the permission of the Early Education for All Campaign. © Strategies for Children / Early Education for All. All rights reserved.
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