Top teacher ratings were linked to longer-lasting pre-K effects, according to a new study.
Researchers at Vanderbilt鈥檚 Peabody College of education and human development drew on data from the and Tennessee Department of Education鈥檚 teacher evaluation system to provide insight into the relationship between preschool effectiveness and early-grade teaching quality.
鈥淲hile it鈥檚 fair to say that expanding preschool consistently has immediate measurable benefits for children who participate, we still know relatively little about what it takes to ensure longer-term academic benefits,鈥� said Matthew G. Springer, director of the and assistant professor of public policy and education at Peabody. 鈥淥ur primary finding is that students who participated in TN-VPK and have higher rated first grade teachers consistently perform better in first grade than students with similarly rated teachers who did not participate in TN-VPK.鈥�
Walker Swain, an advanced doctoral student at Peabody and the lead author on the study, further added, 鈥淭he strength of the interaction between pre-K participation and teacher ratings was particularly strong for two groups: students who had the lowest baseline scores and non-native English speakers.鈥�
The findings suggest high-rated teachers are more likely to build on the foundation established in pre-K investment, or that pre-K provides the scaffolding necessary for students to maximally benefit from high-level instruction.
Springer noted that schools with high concentrations of poor, non-white children have a harder time attracting, supporting and retaining effective teachers, and that administrators often move their best teachers away from the earliest grades where there are no high-stakes tests.
鈥淧reschool alone is not the silver bullet to end poverty or close achievement gaps,鈥� Swain said. 鈥淚t isn鈥檛 a bulletproof vest either. If we want to maximize the impact of public investments in early-childhood education, researchers and policymakers need to pay close attention to both the quality of the initial intervention and to the quality and continuity of services that follow.鈥�
The study, 鈥�,鈥� was published by AERA Open. .
Peabody senior research associate Kerry G. Hofer also contributed to this study.