The Denver Preschool Program (DPP) is a tax-funded initiative in Denver County that was passed by voters in November 2006 to promote the participation of four-year-olds in high-quality preschool experiences. DPP provides tuition credits to parents in Denver to increase the enrollment of four-year-old children in preschool and improve the quality of preschools throughout the city.  In turn, this is expected to help children make an easier transition to kindergarten and, ultimately, to perform better academically in school.

The Clayton Early Learning Institute is collaborating with Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc. (APA) to examine the program and its outcomes for children in their academic careers. The Institute directs the component of the evaluation project that examines academic and socioemotional outcomes for children who participate in the program.

This research will also contribute to the field of early childhood by tracking the impact that public funding for quality improvement has on student success across all demographic groups, with a specific eye on increased school readiness. Lessons learned from this project will add to the body of knowledge regarding public funding for early childhood education.

Parents of children participating in DPP have the option to volunteer to participate in the study. Each year, 200 children will be selected from this pool of volunteers. Two types of data are collected from selected families: standardized assessments and parent surveys. The Institute administers standardized assessments of language, pre-literacy and math skills to children at their preschools. Parents of participating children are asked to complete a survey during the spring of their child’s preschool year.

The Institute plans to track children participating in the evaluation study into elementary school and ultimately collect their CSAP scores so we can fully understand the long-term school performance of children who were enrolled in DPP. The current planned duration for the study is three years, with a potential for renewal of funding. We estimate that we will have a full report on our data analyses for the data collected in the first three years by June 2012.