Concentrated Risk
In all sites, risks to children and their readiness for school were indeed strongly concentrated in a limited number of (generally low-income) neighborhoods.
Research indicates that what happens to children before they enter kindergarten is critical to the goal of achieving reading proficiency for all by the third grade. This brief summarizes the content and results of a project undertaken by the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) in eight cities to explore approaches to strengthening local school readiness systems (Atlanta, Chattanooga, Cleveland, Denver, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee and Providence).
In all sites, risks to children and their readiness for school were indeed strongly concentrated in a limited number of (generally low-income) neighborhoods.
Assessing system performance has been a challenge given the institutional fragmentation of school readiness activities, but there is short-term progress that can be made in order to address this challenge.
Advocacy by local data intermediaries can be influential in strengthening school readiness system initiatives.
Participants in all sites have concluded that having a locally drive initiative to strengthen and coordinate school readiness services makes a critical difference.
State agencies should be facilitators, not managers of the day-to-day operations. Giving ownership to local people, who care in the common concern for the same community, creates a better outcome over the long term.
The pattern of risks to school readiness were highly correlated with the spatial distribution of poverty.
States should create and support collaborative, locally driven initiatives devoted to creating strong and more coherent school readiness systems in counties that have potential to sustain them.
States should provide incentives for local school readiness initiatives to prepare annual reports assessing their progress and change in the overall state of school readiness locally. States should also significantly expand their efforts to extend the coverage and improve the quality of kindergarten school readiness assessments.
Vulnerable neighborhoods in Atlanta and the surrounding counties.
Proximity to quality public education - free and reduced price lunch students, Grade 1 to 3 (2007) in Denver.
Indicator of success in reaching at-risk populations in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Risk index by cnesus tract in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Up to one-half of the gap in achievement scores in school can be attributed to gaps already evident at the time of school entry. Once established, these gaps are difficult to diminish after school begins.
