Resources

+ Building the Brain’s Air Traffic Control System - Harvard Center on the Developing Child

This article discusses how early experiences shape executive functioning, the group of skills that helps us to focus on multiple streams of information at the same time.
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+ Double Jeopardy - Hernandez

April 2011 | A new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, written by FCD Senior Advisor Donald J. Hernandez, finds that children who have lived in poverty and are not reading proficiently in 3rd grade are three times more likely to drop out or fail to graduate from high school than those who have never been poor.
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+ Lessons from Montgomery County - Foundation for Child Development

This is a case study of how one county in Maryland (Montgomery County Public Schools) improved the proportion of 3rd graders reading proficiently or above, shrank its 3rd grade achievement gap, and increased the number of students taking at least one Advanced Placement exam, all while experiencing a rapid change in demographics. District leaders cite the importance of early learning in establishing a value chain that translates to greater school success later on.
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+ Rate of Return to Perry - Heckman

This paper estimates the rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program, an early intervention program targeted toward disadvantaged African-American children. Estimates of the rate of return to the Perry program are widely cited to support the claim of substantial economic benefits from preschool education programs.
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+ Resource & Referral Network: Child Care Funding Reductions

2008 - 2013 | B. California Child Care Resource and Referral Network brief on child care and CalWORKS funding reductions. It details the cuts suffered by the state's Child Care and Development system from 2008-2013, with none of the programs being exempt from cutbacks.
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+ Early Learning, Later Success: The Abecedarian Study

1999 | Describes the Abecedarian Project, a carefully controlled study of outcomes for children birth – age 5 who received full-time, high quality child care, as compared to a control group. The study followed the children through early adulthood, showing positive impacts in cognitive functioning, academic skills, educational attainment, employment, parenthood and social adjustment.
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+ Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Early Education Interventions on Cognitive and Social Development - Camilli

A meta-analysis synthesizing the outcomes of 123 comparative studies on the benefits and costs of implementing specific preschool programs.
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+ State of California 2012 STAR Test Results

The California 2012 STAR test results
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+ What is Early Child Development? - World Bank

Overview of child development stages from birth to 8 years listing what children do and what they need at each developmental stage.
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+ Department of Health and Human Services Early Head Start Report

Findings from the Administration on Children, Youth and Families’ evaluation of Early Head Start programs across the United States. The findings include impacts on program participants, including impacts across demographic groups; impacts of variations in implementation and approaches; and lessons for programs, policymakers and researchers.
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+ Teaching Children Well - Pianta

This report aims to illustrate features of new evidence supported professional development that have promise for closing not only the evidence gap, but the achievement gap as well. The report focuses on one web-based, scalable approach to professional development - MyTeachingPartner, or MTP - that illustrates how evidence-driven professional development can be designed and used to improve teacher effectiveness and student learning.
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+ School Readiness and Later Achievement - Duncan

2007 | This study examines links between three key elements of school readiness - school-entry academic, attention, and social-emotional skills - and later school reading and math achievement. The study found that the strongest predictors of later achievement are school-entry math, reading, and attention skills.
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+ Nurse Home Visiting Research Brief - Brookings Institution

September 2008 | A research brief on the evidence base and impact of nurse home visiting on children and their mothers.
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+ First 5 California Website

First 5 California is dedicated to improving the lives of California’s young children and their families through a comprehensive system of education, health services, childcare, and other crucial programs.
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+ P-3: Getting Out of the Catch-Up Business - Kauerz

2010 | This report outlines the benefits of a P-3 continuum approach, citing the importance of developing cognitive skills, social-emotional competence, and establishing patterns of engagement with school and learning in the early years.
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