UNC national center granted $11 million to investigate pre-kindergarten programs

Chapel Hill -- The National Center for Early Development & Learning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received $11 million to launch a major new study of pre-kindergarten programs linked to public schools. Such programs are rapidly expanding in many states.

The new three-year grant was announced by the National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. "We are excited and very pleased that the outstanding researchers here at UNC and at the partner institutions have been recognized again for their pioneering work in studying services for young children in the United States," said Dr. Robert N. Shelton, executive vice chancellor and provost. "The questions they study are at the heart of children's future educational success."

The center is based at UNC's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center with key collaborators at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Virginia.

Since its founding in 1996, NCEDL has examined effective practices in caring for and educating young children, determined how those practices are being used, identified barriers to them, and tested results and models for improvement, said Dr. Richard Clifford, co-director of the center with Dr. Donna Bryant. Both are senior scientists at the Graham center and professors in UNC's School of Education.

"One specific area of our work has been the quality of child care and its effects on children during their preschool and early school years, " Clifford said. "Public pre-kindergarten will be the focus of the early development and learning center's work through early 2004."

Said Bryant, "With 42 states already serving some of their four-year-olds in state-funded programs and most states considering expansion, the country needs more information about effective models." Early development and learning center investigators estimate that nearly a million pre-K children are served in programs located in or linked to public elementary schools. Some programs focus on children from low-income families; others are universal. Standards such as teacher training, class size and duration of program vary considerably.

"We need to know more about how these differences affect children's experiences in pre-kindergarten and their transition into the beginning school years," Bryant said.

The center's extended research into pre-kindergarten will include:

� Examining a sample of pre-K classes from states with such initiatives,

� Assessing those children and their classrooms with emphasis on literacy, math and social skills development several times before first grade, and

� Documenting transition activities of the parents, schools and early programs.

Related studies will examine transition practices with diverse populations of children and teachers and also look at professional development and funding implications.

"We expect to have a much clearer understanding of the relationship between specific instructional practices in pre-K and kindergarten classes and children's language, cognitive and social development, " Clifford said.

Dr. Don Bailey, director of the Graham center and director of the NCEDL during its first four years, said, "We are delighted and pleased that this important research work is continuing and that our researchers are contributing to the national leadership in early childhood research." Besides Clifford and Bryant, UNC faculty involved in NCEDL include Drs. Lynette Aytch, Oscar Barbarin, Margaret Burchinal, Diane Early and Pamela Winton. The UCLA and UVA teams are headed by Drs. Carollee Howes and Robert Pianta, respectively.

NCEDL is one of 12 national centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education to conduct research into significant problems in education. It is the only center that focuses on early childhood.

Graham center