Who Is Ahead and Who Is Behind? Gaps in School Readiness and Student Achievement in the Early Grades for California’s Children
Early Care and Education in the Golden State: Publicly Funded Programs Serving California’s Preschool-Age Children
Children in California are lagging behind in language arts and mathematics when they enter kindergarten, according to two reports by the RAND Corp., a nonprofit research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif.
The “Who Is Ahead and Who Is Behind?” report says that many children in California have not been enrolled in early-childhood-education programs, and their lack of preparation shows in performance on 2nd and 3rd grade assessments.
The second report notes that while $1.9 billion was spent on government programs for preschool-age children in California last year, about 5 percent to 10 percent of the money available to spend on such programs was left unspent.