Studies on the Effectiveness of All Day Kindergarten after 2000

Proponents of All-Day Kindergarten say that the overwhelming preponderance of studies since the 1970’s and 1980’s show a positive benefit of all day kindergarten.  Yet here are quotes from two large studies done after the year 2000, done by the federal government and the Rand Corporation, neither being conservative standard bearers, and a meta analysis of many studies that show there is fade out of any benefits, decrease in positive attitude towards school, and actual harm to math ability:

A meta-analysis found that attending full-day (or all-day) kindergarten had a positive association with academic achievement (compared to half-day kindergarten) equal to about one quarter standard deviation at the end of the kindergarten year. But the association disappeared by third grade. Reasons for this fade-out are discussed. Social development measures revealed mixed results. Evidence regarding child independence was inconclusive. Evidence was suggestive of a small positive association between full-day kindergarten and attendance and a more substantial positive association with the child’s self-confidence and ability to work and play with others. However, children may not have as positive an attitude toward school in full-day versus half-day kindergarten and may experience more behavior problems. In general, the research on full-day kindergarten would benefit from future studies that allow strong causal inferences and that include more nonacademic outcomes. The authors suggest that full-day kindergarten should be available to all children but not necessarily universally prescribed.   Harris Cooper, Ashley Batts Allen, Erika A. Patall and Amy L. Dent – Effects of Full-Day Kindergarten on Academic Achievement and Social Development – REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 2010 80: 34 DOI: 10.3102/0034654309359185  http://rer.sagepub.com/content/80/1/34 3/24/10

We found that both academic and nonacademic school readiness skills at entry to kindergarten were significantly related to eventual reading and mathematics achievement in fifth grade. Controlling for nonacademic readiness skills at kindergarten entry eliminated the black-white achievement gap in reading at the fifth grade, while attending a full-day kindergarten was unrelated to reading performance. Attendance in a full-day kindergarten program was not related to achievement in mathematics in fifth grade except when nonacademic school readiness factors were included in the model. When those factors were considered, full-day attendance was negatively related to math achievement. In other words, after controlling for nonacademic readiness at kindergarten, children who had attended a full-day program at kindergarten showed poorer mathematics performance in fifth grade than did children who had attended a part-day kindergarten program. This finding raises the possibility that earlier studies may have failed to find relationships between full-day kindergarten and outcomes because they omitted important information relating to nonacademic dimensions of readiness. Future studies should explore whether the inclusion of such variables changes interpretations about the effectiveness of full-day programs. Le, et al – School Readiness, Full-Day Kindergarten, and Student Achievement: An Empirical Investigation – Rand Corporation, http://www.aecf.org/upload/publicationfiles/ec3624j67.pdf, 2006

“In terms of Kindergarten program type, there is little meaningful difference in the level of children’s end-of-year reading and mathematics knowledge.” (Amy Rathburn, Jerry West, and Elvira Germino-Hausken, “From Kindergarten Through Third Grade: Children’s Beginning School Experiences,” U.S Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2004-007, August 2004, 33, available at nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004007.pdf)

“This report did not detect any substantive differences in children’s third-grade achievement relative to the type of kindergarten program (full-day vs. half-day) they attended.” (Rathburn, et.al)

“Third-grade reading, mathematics, and science achievement did not differ substantively by children’s sex or kindergarten program type.” (Rathburn, et. al.)