Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1103796
couldn't identify a single phonetic letter sound. Upon further investigation, Cae- sar found that only four of her 24 students had attended preschool, prompting her to study whether there was a correlation between attending preschool and aca- demic achievement. " I tracked th eir d ata al l year long: Letter names, sight words, phonemic awareness and reading assessment," says Caesar, a member of the Lindsay Teach- ers Association (LTA). "e kids who went to preschool were far better and at grade level by the end of the year. I felt so bad for those kids who didn't have preschool. They had so much catching up to do. It just wasn't fair." Impacts from the lack of preschool experience weren't limited to reading. Caesar discovered that she had to teach her non-preschool students how to be at school, how to interact with classmates, even how to share. She took her data to LUSD administrators, who found Caesar's research to be so compelling that the dis- trict launched its own study, reaching the same conclusion. "It was really glaring for us," says Doria, who was a classroom teacher for 10 years prior to taking the helm of the preschool program a decade ago. "Nobody had bro- ken down the data like that before." Changing futures through early investment A wealth of recent research has shown that children who go to preschool are far better prepared to enter kindergarten than those who don't, and those who are economically disadvantaged benefit even more. Kids who are dual-language learners also benefit from pre-K educa- tion at a disproportionate rate, in English proficiency as well as other academic TK teacher Darcee Collier says her students now arrive with established expectations about school. Preschool helps all kids, but especially dual-language learners and economically disadvantaged students, studies show. " I felt so bad for those kids who didn't have preschool. They had so much catching up to do. It just wasn't fair." — Kristy Caesar, Lindsay Teachers Association skills. And the benefits don't stop there, according to Deborah Stipek, a Stanford University professor who focuses on early childhood education. "ere is substantial evidence now that high-quality preschool has short-term effects on the likelihood of children being placed in special education or required to repeat a year of schooling, as well as long-term effects on the likelihood of being incarcerated and educational and financial attainment," Stipek says. "The early years set the foundation for future learning and development." Stipek also notes that preschool helps close the "huge achievement gap associ- ated with family income when children e n t e r k i n d e rg a r t e n , w h i c h re m a i n s throughout K-12." Expanding early child- hood education is one of the centerpieces of Gov. Newsom's "California for All" bud- get proposal. e massive investment in early resources and opportunity for all children is a major effort to increase edu- cational equity in public schools. is is particularly critical in districts 28 cta.org