Category: Education

A new report released by Georgetown University shows that students in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who attended a high-quality pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) program displayed positive academic effects that persisted through middle school. Specifically, the group of students who had attended pre-K showed higher math test scores, more enrollment in honors courses, and less grade retention. The study detailed …

Young dual-language learners represent 60 percent of the 0-5 population in California, and most of the state’s English learners can be found in the early elementary grades.To help advance advocacy on behalf of young dual-language learners in California, the Heising-Simons Foundation has helped launch California’s Gold: Capitalizing on California’s Diversity Today, for a Brighter Tomorrow, an advocacy framework and resource website authored by Dr. Marlene Zepeda and written after extensive consultation with the early childhood education field.

With support from the Heising-Simons Foundation’s Education program, Urban Institute has developed an interactive tool that shows national, state, and local characteristics of 3- to 5-year-olds, including whether the children are enrolled in preschool, whether their families are low income, or whether their parents are immigrants. With key data points on immigration status, language spoken at home, and parental English proficiency, this tool paints a more dynamic picture of the linguistic and cultural diversity of the preschool-age population.

This summer marks the conclusion of the Family Engagement Impact Project (FEIP), an investment by the Heising-Simons Foundation’s Education program totaling more than $3 million to better coordinate family engagement efforts across organizations. The project supported multiple collaborations between school districts, community organizations, and early childhood providers. Through this investment, FEIP sought to improve some of the ways communities, professionals, and parents engage in children’s learning, and to promote positive educational outcomes for low-income immigrant children from birth through age 8.

Students who attend California’s transitional kindergarten (TK) program enter kindergarten with stronger math and literacy skills than students who did not attend TK, according to a new study released today by grantee American Institutes for Research (AIR).