Contact: Jessie Harteis (202) 344-9805; [email protected]
The District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) released today its 2015 pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) report: The State of Pre-K in the District of Columbia. The report highlights that the District continues to be a leader in pre-K access and investment, while showing gains in quality across public and public charter schools and community-based settings.
“This report underscores that we are on the right track as we expand high-quality early childhood programs throughout the District,” said Mayor Bowser. “I look forward to the District showing even more gains next year.”
In the second year of the District’s use of a common assessment of quality environments and instruction, the District’s pre-K programs collectively improved across all measures of quality when compared to average scores from 2014. In 2015, most pre-K classrooms across the District provided high-quality environments that were supportive of children’s social-emotional development and effectively maximized learning time, as determined by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K® (CLASS), though the results also show the District has more work to do to improve the quality of instructional support.
“We are excited that the District of Columbia continues to deliver on its commitment to increasing access to high-quality pre-K,” said State Superintendent Hanseul Kang. “We look forward to continuing to work with DCPS, public charter schools, and community-based organizations to help ensure DC’s youngest learners are prepared for future success.”
The annual report on the state of pre-K describes how the District has supported rigorous efforts to ensure that all three- and four-year-olds have access to high-quality early learning. The District is developing an enhanced Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) and has launched the pre-K enhancement and expansion grants funding process to increase the number of children who have access to high-quality pre-K in community-based settings.
The District piloted the Early Development Instrument (EDI), which provides a neighborhood-level snapshot of children’s health, development, and school readiness. OSSE will be more broadly implementing the EDI in 2016 in partnership with local education agencies (LEAs) and community-based organizations (CBOs).
Read the full 2015 pre-K report “The State of Pre-K in the District of Columbia” on OSSE’s website at osse.dc.gov.
