According to Dr. Michael Little, an academic leader in the field of elementary education, students who attend pre-kindergarten “get a really great boost in early skills that set them up for success in elementary school.” Others like Neal McCluskey, the associate director of The Center on Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, disagree; “the reality is there isn’t good research basis to say that pre-K is good.” He claims unsound data and the limited scope of early education studies on long-term benefits are to blame. So, who is right? Two main points of dispute lie in the value and execution of pre-K programs as a whole.

The first point of contention is availability. In Texas, pre-K is not widely accessible to those who cannot afford it because public programs in Texas are typically tuition-based. Certain families are eligible for tuition-free pre-K under standards established in House Bill 3 from the 86th Legislative Session. Still, most pre-K-aged children are ineligible. Bills expanding eligibility proposed during the current Legislative Session, H.B. 342 and S.B. 38, died in committee. The language of these two bills was proposed for inclusion in H.B. 3, but was ultimately rejected. Had at least one of them passed, all four-year-old children in Texas would be eligible to attend full-day, tuition-free pre-K.

This raises the question: Is there an academic benefit to pre-kindergarten? Data from the Texas Public Education Information Resource database, compiled by the Texas Education Agency, indicates there are more short-term academic benefits than long-term. The TPEIR database publishes public pre-K statistics on student subject-based improvements from the beginning to the end of the school year, third grade STAAR test performance, and high school graduation rates. This data, excluding subject-based improvements during the school year, compares students who were eligible for and attended public pre-K to students who began school in kindergarten, despite being eligible to attend tuition-free. The data below also includes the demographics of students enrolled in the tuition-free program for the years measured.

It is important to note a few key components of this data to contextualize its significance. “Public pre-K” refers to tuition-free pre-K and only includes students who attended because they fall under a certain qualifying demographic (Figures 1–3). The two comparative groups qualify for the same public program, but only one group of students attended. Neither group includes students who paid tuition to attend. Additionally, the data in the figures below covers the three most recent school years pre-COVID: 2016–2017, 2017–2018, and 2018–2019. COVID skewed more recent data because the mode of education at the height of the pandemic varied by school district (hybrid, zoom, asynchronous, etc.) and does not accurately measure the academic impact of pre-K on students. 

It’s also important to address the demographics of the students measured in the data to provide adequate context for the conclusions made. Figures 1–3 show the demographic breakdown of the students who attended. Each year over 60% of students in public pre-K are considered “economically disadvantaged” (labeled “E. Disadvantaged” in the figures) meaning they qualify for free or reduced lunch due to their family income falling below 130% of the federal income poverty guidelines per TEA. “Other students,” according to TEA, are students who qualify for public pre-K for alternative reasons including children of a peace officer, firefighter, or emergency medical first responder. Factors beyond controllable measures including parental education, household income, and physical/mental health also impact academic success. Students included in the data, given the qualifying criteria, are more likely to be negatively impacted by the aforementioned factors. 

Author’s Note: TEA does not provide clarification as to how children who qualify under multiple categories are classified. For example, it is unclear how a military child in a special education program would be classified.

Figure 1  Source: TPEIRFigure 2  Source: TPEIR

Figure 3   Source: TPEIR

Figures 4–7 indicate that pre-kindergarten attendance results in high improvement for reading, math, and language skills from the beginning of the school year to the end. The results regarding writing skills are mixed. The percentage indicates the number of students who showed proficient performance in a given subject throughout the year. This is a notable benefit of pre-K in the short-term, regardless of the impact on educational success in the future.

Figure 4 Source: TPEIRFigure 5  Source: TPEIRFigure 6  Source: TPEIR

Figure 7  Source: TPEIR

The second comparative measurement is performance on the third grade STAAR test. The data in Figures 8 and 9 indicate that attending pre-K does not have a notable impact on third grade STAAR test performance.

Figure 8  Source: TPEIR

Figure 9  Source: TPEIR

The third measure used to examine pre-K attendance’s impact on academic success is high school graduation rates. Figure 10 shows that students who attended had around a 4% higher graduation rate each year measured than those who were eligible for, but did not attend. This data shows a correlation between attendance and a higher likelihood of high school graduation, which could be causal, or could be attributed to varying factors given the 13-year gap between pre-K and 12th grade.

Figure 10  Source: TPEIR

The data from the three TEA measurements suggests that pre-K has a significant positive impact on short-term academic success, as seen in Figures 4–7. However, Figures 8–10 indicate that attending could potentially have a positive impact on long-term academic success, but the relatively minimal differences in standardized testing performance and graduation rates are likely due to a combination of factors and come down to correlation, not causation. Because there is not another indicative measurement of direct causation in long-term academic impact, Texans must rely on the data at hand and form their own conclusions about whether or not to place their children in a pre-kindergarten program. Despite its limiting factors, the source of this data sets this analysis apart from other studies. Population-wide results using data directly from our schools provides a relatively clearer picture for further analysis. Had H.B. 342 and S.B. 38 been enacted into law, parents who hesitate to place their children in pre-K due to financial reasons would’ve had the opportunity to do so. One important observation to make about the data above is that it all pertains to the academic impacts. Other aspects of pre-K might be more impactful than the educational benefits, including socialization and behavioral development. At the very least academically speaking, expanding access across the state will do no harm in the long-term and offers benefits in the short-term. Universal pre-kindergarten in Texas would, however, provide the opportunity for more accurate, all-encompassing data to determine where the most prominent, positive effects lie.