Impact of Georgia's Pre-K Program on Kindergarten through Third Grade Teachers

Abstract

The Georgia Prekindergarten Program (Pre-K), established in 1993, provides Georgia's fouryear-old children with high quality preschool experiences in order to prepare them for kindergarten. Immediate gains resulting from Pre-K can be lost if teachers in later grades are not prepared to capitalize on the increasing capabilities of students. To sustain the positive effects of the Pre-K program, teachers in later grades need both to recognize that students are better prepared for school and to adapt their instructional practices to take advantage of their students' increasing capabilities. Research implies that teachers adopt practices in their classrooms relative to how their beliefs match assumptions inherent in new programs. Thus, this study investigates teacher awareness of the impact of Pre-K on students, teacher beliefs about instructional practices, current instructional practices, and the relationship between beliefs and practices.The Council for School Performance launched this study to examine the implications of the Pre-K program for teachers of children in kindergarten through third grade. Through a survey of teachers in Georgia, the Council has found that teachers believe that the Pre-K program has positively affected students in elementary school, despite observations that students are, overall, changing for the worse. The majority of teachers believe in child-centered instructional practices, but this belief has not been adopted into their own instructional practices. Overall, teachers are as likely to use child-centered practices as they are to use teacher-directed activities