New study shows all-day kindergarten would help Idaho students make up for learning loss

The COVID-19 pandemic has depressed in historic fashion literacy results for elementary school children across the country. Performance on the iReady test administered nationally by Curriculum Associates showed, “compared to historical averages, fewer second and third graders were at grade level in reading (six and five percentage points lower, respectively), and many more students performed below grade level (nine and seven percentage points higher, respectively).”

The hit to Idaho’s youngest students hasn’t been as dramatic as it has in other states where school closures were longer and more pronounced than in the Gem State. Yet, only about half of Idaho’s kindergartners through third-graders were reading at grade level or better on the Idaho Reading indicator standardized test administered earlier this fall.

The learning loss has been even more dramatic for poor and minority students.

“Schools serving majority Black and Latino students saw almost double the amount of unfinished learning in third grade reading and math as schools serving majority white students,” Curriculum Associates reported.

In Idaho, the conversation around state funding for all-day kindergarten has never been more serious. Currently, we are one of only nine states that does not require school districts to offer any kind of kindergarten. But this may very well change in 2022.

According to reporting by Idaho Education News, “All-day kindergarten has widespread support: from Gov. Brad Little, the State Board of Education, state superintendent Sherri Ybarra, legislators of both parties, and education and business lobbyists. And with the state sitting on a record $1.6 billion surplus, there’s plenty of money for a launch.”

The stakes are high.

“Children who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out or fail to graduate from high school,” according to Florida-based ExcelinEd. “For poor Black and Hispanic students, that likelihood doubles.”

But what does Idaho’s IRI data tell us about the efficacy of all-day kindergarten as a tool for improving student reading scores in the early grades?

My nonprofit organization Bluum, with generous funding from the Boise-based J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, engaged the expert research team at Public Impact in North Carolina to help tease out the answer in the first-of-its-kind study in Idaho. Public Impact, with support from the Idaho State Board of Education, accessed Idaho Reading Indicator data from 2018-19 through 2020-21 to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of all-day kindergarten on our children’s literacy results.

In 2020-21, there were 19,043 Idaho kindergartners in partial-day kindergarten and 14,832 Idaho children in full-day kindergarten, with larger percentages of economically disadvantaged, special education and English language learners in all-day programs than partial-day.

A number of Idaho school districts have used their local funds and/or state literacy funds to provide all-day kindergarten for their students in recent years, while 16 public charter schools working with Bluum used grants from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation to fund all-day for their kindergartners.

Key findings from the Public Impact study include:

• From fall 2020 to spring 2021, Full-day kindergartners made more progress than partial-day, including economically disadvantaged students, though economically disadvantaged students remain far behind.
• Students participating in full-day kindergarten improved their IRI scores and outpaced partial-day kindergarten students.
• Full-day kindergarten students’ scores made statistically significant improvements compared with partial-day kindergarten students
• After closing during the kindergarten year, the gap between full-day and partial-day kindergartners re-widens in first and second grade. For non-economically disadvantaged students, the gap only partially re-widens, but for economically disadvantaged students, the gap becomes larger in second grade than at the beginning of kindergarten.

All-day kindergarten is not a magic bullet. But in the era of COVID-19 and expanding learning gaps, especially among our neediest students, it should be a fundamental tool for Idaho in setting the conditions for better learning outcomes for our youngest students.