Impact of California's Transitional Kindergarten Program, 2013-14

Transitional kindergarten (TK)—the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for California children who turn 5 between September 2 and December 2—is intended to better prepare young five-year-olds for kindergarten and ensure a strong start to their educational career. To determine whether this goal is being achieved, American Institutes for Research (AIR) is conducting an evaluation of the impact of TK in California. The goal of this study is to measure the success of the program by determining the impact of TK on students' readiness for kindergarten in several areas. Using a rigorous regression discontinuity (RD) research design,1 we compared language, literacy, mathematics, executive function, and social-emotional skills at kindergarten entry for students who attended TK and for students who did not attend TK. Overall, we found that TK had a positive impact on students' kindergarten readiness in several domains, controlling for students' age differences. These effects are over and above the experiences children in the comparison group had the year before kindergarten, which for more than 80 percent was some type of preschool program

Deciphering Socioeconomic Status: Understanding the Association Between SES and Student Background Variables in the National Assessment of Educational Progress

National Assessment of Educational Progress uses proxies of socioeconomic status when reporting results by key groups. In order to examine the validity of these proxy variables, current study uses a special sample of around 1300 students who took both NAEP and ECLS-K grade eight reading assessments. These students answered the background questionnaire in both assessments. In addition, ECLS-K also collected information from parents about their socioeconomic status. Therefore, measures of socioeconomic status found in ECLS-K were used to evaluate and understand the associations among SES and other proxy measures of SES found in NAEP. Results of this study allow for the evaluation of variables collected in NAEP to measure SES against parent-reported SES collected in ECLS-K

AP Calculus and Science Coursetaking: Their Relationships With Choosing a STEM Major and Expecting to Be in a STEM Occupation

Some researchers have questioned whether there is a causal connection between Advanced Placement (AP) STEM coursetaking and the choice of a STEM college major and a STEM occupation. Their research findings strongly suggest that if prior interest in STEM as well as other possible confounders are taken into account, the relationships of taking AP mathematics to expecting to be in a STEM major and/or a STEM occupation are small to nonexistent. Results from the current study, which uses data from a national longitudinal sample—actual measures of who majors in STEM—and prior interest in STEM along with other possible confounders, indicate that taking AP mathematics and AP science courses is significantly related to majoring in STEM and/or expecting to be in a STEM occupation at age 30—the sole exception being the taking of AP statistics