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10-31-2010

The Impact of Full-day vs. Half-day Kindergartenon Student Achievement of Low SocioeconomicStatus Minority StudentsJeffrey A. NowakIPFW

Joe D. NicholsIPFW

Douglass CouttsFort Wayne Community Schools

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Opus CitationNowak, Jeffrey A.; Nichols, Joe D.; and Coutts, Douglass (2009) "The Impact of Full-day vs. Half-day Kindergarten on StudentAchievement of Low Socioeconomic Status Minority Students," scholarlypartnershipsedu: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 4.Available at: http://opus.ipfw.edu/spe/vol4/iss1/4

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scholarlypartnershipsedu

The Impact of Full-day vs. Half-day Kindergarten on Student Achievement of Low Socioeconomic Status Minority Students

Jeffrey A. Nowak, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne,Joe D. Nichols, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne, &Douglass Coutts, Fort Wayne Community Schools

AbstractThis project explores the impact of full-day (FDK) kindergarten vs. half-day kindergarten (HDK) on student academic achievement. The participant samples were drawn from a large school district in the Midwest. Specifically, the data set highlights the effects of FDK vs. HDK on the achievement of inner-city minority students with low/moderate income status. The HDK sample of inner-city students were bussed to suburban schools as a result of a lawsuit settlement designed to desegregate the local schools (Roduta, 2004). The authors explored the state-mandated third-grade test scores to conduct a statistical examination of the achievement of the students. The analyses of the data indicated that low socioeconomic status inner-city minority students who attended FDK programs perform significantly better on the third grade Indiana State Testing Equivalency and Proficiency (ISTEP+) test in both math and English/language arts when compared to similar students who attended half-day programs. These results and the justification of bussing low socioeconomic status minority students from the inner-city to HDK suburban schools to achieve diversity, when their peers remain in FDK schools and show significantly greater gains in academic achievement up through second grade are discussed. IntroductionThis article was written in collaboration with a local school administrator at one of the largest public school systems in the state and two faculty members in the School of Education at the region’s largest public university. The school administrator was a former professor at the university and coemployee with one of the university coauthors of this article. The first author had done previous work for the public school system in the area

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of Full-day Kindergarten (FDK) vs. Half-day Kindergarten (HDK) and had recently finished a coauthored state-wide report on FDK for the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents.

The initial indications of what the school administrator noticed about test scores of students bussed from Title I schools with FDK programs to more suburban schools in the district with HDK programs peaked his interest. Compliance with a law passed decades earlier designed to desegregate the school district was being met by bussing the inner-city students to the rural schools, but in addition to helping desegregate the schools, the students were also being enrolled in the shorter half-day kindergarten program. This presented a former university researcher and school administrator with a data set begging examination. Knowing that the university and school had a history of collaborating in an effort to conduct meaningful research specific to the needs of the school district, the administrator sought assistance in measuring whether any differences in the performance of low socioeconomic status existed. As a result of his desire to delve deeper into the data set and collaborate with a former college, he called upon his friend at the university and proposed they work together to examine the data for possible impact on student achievement. The resulting article is the result of an examination of the data set followed by an exploration of the constructive critiques received by participants who attended a discussion of the paper at an annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

In many states and school corporations today, educators continually debate the advantages and disadvantages of full-day and half-day early childhood and kindergarten programs. These debates often center on cost/benefit comparisons where the additional cost of FDK programs are weighed against their potential benefits. The same holds true in this particular case where the State of Indiana does not yet fully fund FDK (Greifner, 2007). Although these programs can center on an academic or developmental focus, they may also vary in terms of logistics in that they may be offered for a full day every day, a half day every day, or more rarely for a full day part of the week (Karweit, 1993). Although traditional kindergarten and early childhood programs were intended to be a transition from home to school, additional program objectives have grown to include socialization, aesthetics, sensory-motor development, development of positive attitudes toward school, and general school readiness (Brannon, 2005; Humphrey, 1990; Nelson, 2000). As recent No Child Left Behind legislation in America has begun to demand greater accountability of academic success and adequate yearly improvement for all students, it becomes increasingly important to examine the impact of school curriculum and programs, specifically those that have the potential to impact early success in schools.

This study involved conducting a focused comparison of standardized test scores of low socioeconomic (SES) inner-city minority students from a large Midwestern school

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corporation, who attend everyday full-day kindergarten programs with students of similar backgrounds who attend everyday half-day kindergarten programs (Table 1). While all of the minority students included in this study live in the inner city of the same large Midwestern city, a portion of the students are bussed to suburban schools as a result of a lawsuit settlement in the 1980s designed to desegregate schools. The non-bussed students remain in the inner city and attend Title I schools. All of the Title I schools have full-day kindergarten (FDK) programs whereas the bussed students attend half-day kindergarten (HDK) programs in suburban schools in the same school district. As a result of mandatory bussing, the inner city students bring diversity to otherwise predominantly Caucasian suburban schools and attend HDK programs whereas their inner-city counterparts remain in inner-city schools where FDK programs are offered due to the schools’ Title I status. This study compares the academic achievement on a third-grade state standardized test of those low-SES minority inner-city students in the FDK program with their neighborhood cohorts who were bused to the suburban HDK programs. Table 1 provides descriptive information of the participants in this study.

Table 1Ethnicity of Low SES Minority Inner-City Students Enrolled in Half-Day (HDK) or Full-Day (FDK) ProgramsEthnicity Percent (%) FDK

(n = 530)

Percent (%) HDK

(n = 243)

African American 61.32 92.18Asian-Pacific Islander 3.40 0.41Hispanic 28.87 5.76Multiracial 3.77 1.23Native American 2.64 0.41

Literature ReviewPrevious research comparing full-day and half-day kindergarten programs has provided varied and complex (Baskett, Bryant, White, Rhoads, 2005; Clark & Kirk, 2000; Fusaro, 1997; Ohio State Legislative Office of Education, 1997; Plucker, Eaton, Rapp, Lim, Nowak, Hansen, Bartleson, 2004; Saam & Nowak, 2005; Wolgemuth, Cobb, Winokur, Leech, Ellerby, 2006) results, particularly when a wide range of variables have the potential to impact student achievement. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS; Walston & West, 2002), enrollment in full-day kindergarten also varies widely across states, communities, and schools. Nationwide, enrollment ranges from 83 percent in the southern states to 23 percent in western states. Demographic variables impacting enrollment in full-day kindergarten include the location

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of the child’s home, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background and whether the child attends a public or private school (Denton, West & Walston, 2003; Walston & West, 2002). Economically disadvantaged students in full-day kindergarten programs are often found to have higher academic achievement than those in half-day programs, although the magnitude of those greater benefits is inconclusive (Plucker, et al., 2004).

Students from rural and urban districts are more likely to attend full-day kindergarten programs when compared to children in suburban areas. Ethnic group variation also tends to be prevalent as 79 percent of African American children attend full-day kindergartens compared to 49 percent of white, 46 percent of Hispanic, and 40 percent of Asian students. Attendance in full-day programs tends to be greater for children of low economic backgrounds (62 percent) than for children of non-poverty status (51 percent). In addition, students from non-English–speaking homes attend at a lower rate than children from English-speaking homes. When private and public schools are compared, 70 percent of private schools tend to offer full-day programs compared to 54 percent of public school institutions (Plucker, et al., 2004). With the current variability in programs and the wide range of students who attend full-day kindergarten options, it becomes important to explore the effectiveness of these programs and how these may potentially affect student development and eventual academic achievement. This is particularly important in the State of Indiana where as previously mentioned the level of state funding provided for FDK remains in question (Greifner, 2007).

The findings of some research studies have indicated that on some academic and/or social achievement indicators, full-day kindergarten schedules may offer little or no statistically significant advantage over half-day programs (Holmes & McConnell, 1990; Karweit, 1993; Karweit, 1992; Ohio State Legislative Office of Education, 1997; Saam & Nowak, 2005). Additional research also offers conflicting findings or contends that full-day kindergartens should be implemented for other “intangible reasons” (Brannon, 2005; Clark & Kirk, 2000; De Costa & Bell, 2000; Fromberg, 1992; Harrison-McEachern, 1989; Hough & Bryde, 1996; Housden & Kam, 1992; Koopmans, 1991; Lofthouse, 1994; Lore, 1992; Nelson, 2000; Rothenberg, 1995; Towers, 1991). These “intangible” reasons include greater utilization of time and small-group activities in full-day programs (Clark & Kirk, 2000), lower student/teacher ratios, and greater peer-to-peer interactions in full-day programs (De Costa & Bell, 2000), and school attendance tends to be as good or better for full-day attendees when compared to half-day attendees (Clark & Kirk, 2000). In addition, full-day students in some instances have been shown to perform better on certain language arts/reading criteria (De Costa & Bell, 2000; Entwisle & Alexander, 1998; Wolgemuth, et al., 2006) while other full-day attendees have experienced greater achievement on certain mathematics criteria (Entwisle & Alexander, 1998; Hough & Bryde, 1996; Wolgemuth, et al., 2006) when compared to half-day attendees.

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In general, small-scale research or program evaluations support full-day kindergarten programs as a contributing factor to greater academic achievement (Coladarci & Ervin, 2000; Cryan, Sheehan, Wiechel & Bandy-Hedden, 1992; Elicker & Manthur, 1997; Hills, 1985; Hough & Bryde, 1996; Koopmans, 1991; Lore, 1992; Plucker, et al., 2004). These benefits of full-day programs appear in some instances to extend beyond the end of kindergarten, with evidence that full-day students have higher academic achievement in third (Mueller, 1977) and eighth grades (Nieman & Gastright, 1981; Pasco School District, 1987). In addition to these potential academic benefits, Cryan suggested that full-day programs resulted in 17–55 percent fewer grade retentions but also found no relationship between program type and special education provisions. Cryan and her colleagues (Cryan et al., 1992) and others (Humphrey, 1980; Wang & Johnstone, 1999) also suggested that full-day programs favored the development of pro-social and positive behavioral attributes.

Empirical studies have found that on average, non-Asian minority students arrive at kindergarten or first grade with lower levels of language, math, and general knowledge skills than white and Asian American children (Farkas, 2003). In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education resulted in desegregation models designed to provide equal educational opportunities for students of all ethnicities (Ikpa, 2003; Mickelson, 2001). Many of these models have employed bussing students to schools outside of their local neighborhood in order achieve greater ethnic balance in schools. However, interracial exposure in schools and neighborhoods has also been found to trigger racial and ethnic conflict (Olzak, Shanahan, & West, 1994). One study indicates that teachers in either predominantly African American or white schools can create classroom environments that support their students (Harmon, 2001), while another suggested that resegregated schools perform poorly in math and science achievement when compared to desegregated schools (Ikpa, 2003). Several studies have found that public opinion over using bussing to desegregate schools with its intended benefits and actual outcomes varies considerably (McAndrews, 2001; Mickelson, 2001; Orfield, 1995).

Other studies have suggested that full-day kindergarten programs may have the greatest positive effect on at-risk children and children from educationally disadvantaged homes (Clark, 2001; Clark & Kirk, 2000; da Costa & Bell, 2000) and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds also benefit considerably from full-day programs (Brooks, 2008; Jones, Pollock & Marockie, 1988). Additionally, the most convincing evidence of the positive effects of full-day kindergarten programs comes from a recent analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study by the U.S. Department of Education (Walston & West, 2002) suggesting that these programs are associated with greater reading achievement gains, greater math gains for low-income students, and greater gains in reading achievement for minority students when the presence of an additional classroom aid was available. This current study seeks to both inform and extend this body of research by examining the impact of FDK vs. HDK programs on predominantly low socioeconomic inner-city

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minority students from the same neighborhood. As discussed in the introduction, those students who attended FDK programs remained in inner-city Title I schools while those bussed to suburban schools as a result of an earlier court desegregation settlement attended HDK programs. Specific questions explored in this study include: 1) the potential specific academic gains in math achievement that students may experience by attending a full-day kindergarten program; 2) the potential specific academic gains in reading and language arts that students may experience by attending a full-day kindergarten program; and 3) the impact on both math and reading/language arts achievement when students in half-day vs. full-day kindergarten programs are compared.

MethodologyIn this study, recent Indiana State Testing Equivalency and Proficiency (ISTEP+) math and English/language arts scale scores for 773 low-SES minority inner-city third-grade students from a large urban school corporation in Indiana were examined. Prekindergarten measures of ability or achievement were not available for these participants, and third grade was the first year after kindergarten that the state-mandated administration of a standardized test occurred. In addition to ISTEP+ test scores, the data provided by the school corporation included academic year, school, kindergarten program type, gender, ethnicity, meal code, and zip code information. Students were identified as living in the inner-city based on zip code data.

While most of the inner-city students remained in their local neighborhood to attend kindergarten in Title I schools with FDK programs, some inner-city students were bussed to suburban schools with HDK programs as a result of a previous desegregation settlement. Of that cohort, the ISTEP+ scores of non-Caucasian students who received a free or reduced lunch were examined. An impact thought to be derived from bussing students out of the inner city could be inferred. However, the larger impact on the ISTEP+ math and English/language arts scores is considered to be the effectiveness of the academic program used in the school. All inner-city students who attended rural schools were bussed from an inner-city Title I FDK program school to a rural school HDK program. The respective numbers of those inner-city students enrolled in a full-day or half-day kindergarten program and their third grade standardized test scores can be seen in Table 2.

Table 2Total Number of Low SES Minority Inner-City Students in Kindergarten Program by YearAcademic Year Half-day Kindergarten Full-day Kindergarten

1999–2000 110 2302000–2001 133 300 Totals 243 530

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No significant changes were made to the FDK or HDK programs over these two academic years. Therefore, since the same curriculum and teaching strategies were implemented with both HDK cohorts and FDK cohorts respectively, the ISTEP+ scale scores from both academic years were combined to increase statistical power before comparisons were made between the full-day and half-day kindergarten programs. Statistical analyses of the data were done using two-sample t-tests assuming equal variances with a 95 percent confidence interval of both individual and combined math and English/language arts scores.

ResultsDescriptive test score data for all low-SES minority students comparing results of students who attended Title I full-day kindergarten programs vs. scores from students who attended non-adjacent schools (i.e., inner-city students bussed to suburban schools) with half-day programs are included in Table 3. Important to note in this table are the differences in mean scores for English/language arts and math scores of half-day vs. full-day kindergarten attendees by the time these students reach third grade. Scale mean scores for full-day attendees in math averaged approximately 28 points higher when compared to half-day attendees, and English/language arts mean scores for full-day attendees averaged approximately 17 points higher than half-day attendees.

Table 3Descriptive ISTEP+ Test Scale Score Data for FDK vs. HDK Low-SES Minority Inner-City Students

Half-day Kindergarten Full-day Kindergarten

English/LA Math English/LA Math

Number 243 243 530 530Min. Score 199 199 255 204Max. Score 552 610 605 620Mean 396.55 403.31 413.15 431.35Std. Dev. 53.98 63.81 56.59 70.83

In order to determine if these differences were statistically significant, two sample t-tests assuming equal variances were conducted for comparisons between HDK vs. FDK English/language arts scores, math scores, and math and English/language arts scores combined. For English/language arts achievement, full-day attendees scored significantly higher when compared to half-day attendees t(1, 2) = 3.84, p< .05 on the state standardized exam in third grade (Table 4). For math achievement, similar results were found in that full-day attendees scored significantly higher than half-day attendees t(1, 2) = 5.27, p < .05 (Table 5). Table 6 is provided to explore the mean differences in combined math and English/language arts for full-day and half-day attendees. The results suggest that again, full-day

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attendees scored significantly higher on combined scores t(1, 2) = 6.46, p < .05 when compared to half-day attendees. Readers are encouraged to explore Tables 4–6 for additional information using Cohen’s d calculations to explore the effect size of these results.

Table 4 Two-sample t-Test Results for FDK vs. HDK Low-SES Minority Inner-city Students English/LA ISTEP+ Scores English/Language Arts FDK HDK

Mean 413.15 396.55Variance 3201.87 2913.54Sample Size 530 243Degrees of Freedom 771t Statistic 3.84*

Cohen’s d 0.30** *p < .05 **Medium or moderate effect size

Table 5 Two-sample t-Test for FDK vs. HDK Low SES Minority Inner-city Students Math ISTEP+ ScoresMath FDK HDK

Mean 431.35 403.31Variance 5016.44 4072.27Sample Size 530 243Degrees of Freedom 771t Statistic 5.27*

Cohen’s d 0.42***p < .05 **Medium or moderate effect size

Table 6Two-sample t-Test for FDK vs. HDK Low-SES Minority Inner-city Students English/LA and Math ISTEP+ Scores CombinedEnglish/Language Arts & Math FDK HDK

Mean 422.25 399.93Variance 4188.14 3497.17Sample Size 1060 486Degrees of Freedom 1544t Statistic 6.46*

Cohen’s d 0.36***p < .05 **Medium or moderate effect size

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DiscussionThe above analyses indicate that the low-SES inner-city minority students who attended full-day kindergarten programs perform significantly better on the third-grade Indiana State Testing Equivalency and Proficiency (ISTEP+) test in both math and English/language arts. This result is not surprising given that disadvantaged students in full-day kindergarten programs are often found to have higher academic achievement than those in half-day programs (Plucker, et al., 2004), and that full-day students in some instances have been shown to perform better on certain language arts/reading criteria (De Costa & Bell, 2000; Entwisle & Alexander, 1998; Wolgemuth, et al., 2006) while other full-day attendees have experienced greater achievement on certain mathematics criteria (Entwisle & Alexander, 1998; Hough & Bryde, 1996; Wolgemuth, et al., 2006). This study appears to parallel other small-scale research or program evaluations that support full-day kindergarten programs as a contributing factor to greater academic achievement (Coladarci & Ervin, 2000; Cryan, Sheehan, Wiechel & Bandy-Hedden, 1992; Elicker & Manthur, 1997; Hills, 1985; Hough & Bryde, 1996; Koopmans, 1991; Lore, 1992; Plucker, et al., 2004). Just as some studies have found that the benefits of full-day programs appear in some instances to extend beyond the end of kindergarten, with evidence that full-day students have higher academic achievement in third (Mueller, 1977) and eighth grades (Nieman & Gastright, 1981; Pasco School District, 1987), our study indicates that the benefit may potentially extend to at least the third grade.

Several studies suggest that full-day kindergarten programs may have the greatest positive effect on at-risk children and children from educationally disadvantaged homes (Clark, 2001; Clark & Kirk, 2000; da Costa & Bell, 2000) and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds also benefit considerably from full-day programs (Brooks, 2008; Jones, Pollock & Marockie, 1988). Again our study supports these research findings with low-SES inner-city FDK students scoring significantly higher on ISTEP+ math and English/language arts scores than low-SES inner-city HDK students. Additionally, our study supports the research findings of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study by the U.S. Department of Education (Walston et al., 2002) which suggests that the positive effects of full-day kindergarten programs are associated with greater reading achievement gains and greater math gains for low-income students. Although no baseline preschool data were available for comparative purposes for this study, providing a guarded interpretation of the data and results, there remains reasonable evidence to suggest that low-SES minority inner-city students will likely see greater academic benefits from attending a FDK program as compared to a HDK program up through at least the third grade.

ConclusionsThis study was designed to explore a comparative analysis of the academic achievement of low-SES minority inner-city students attending full-day vs. half-day kindergarten

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programs. Based upon the results, low-SES inner-city minority students are better served by FDK programs than HDK programs in terms of academic achievement up through at least the third grade. However, this study also raises some interesting questions that merit further discussion. The reason for bussing some inner-city students out to suburban schools was a result of a lawsuit settlement designed to desegregate schools (Roduta, 2004). The decision to desegregate schools was considered to be a positive move in the direction of bringing balanced and equal educational opportunities to all students throughout the school district. However, is the bussing of predominantly low-SES minority inner-city students out to suburban schools the best way to achieve balanced and equal educational opportunities for the district?

Cryan and her colleagues (Cryan et al., 1992) and others (Humphrey, 1980; Wang & Johnstone, 1999) suggest that full-day kindergarten programs favor the development of pro-social and positive behavioral attributes. Assuming that FDK programs do in fact support the development of pro-social and positive behavioral attributes, one might question why the inner-city students in this study were bussed away from FDK programs to suburban schools where HDK programs were offered. The bussing of inner-city children to the suburban schools would then potentially deprive these inner-city children of the pro-social and positive behavioral attribute growth they would otherwise receive. Similarly, taking into consideration that FDK programs benefit students from low-SES and educationally disadvantaged homes, one must call to question the appropriateness of trying to achieve diversity and racial balance across the school district by sending inner-city students out to suburban schools where HDK programs are offered. This policy potentially deprives the inner-city children who come from low-SES and educationally disadvantaged homes of any potential benefits they could have received by staying in their neighborhood Title I School where FDK is offered.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) resulted in desegregation models designed to provide equal educational opportunities for students of all ethnicities (Ikpa, 2003; Mickelson, 2001). Many of these models have employed bussing students to schools outside of their local neighborhood to achieve greater ethnic balance in schools, and as evidenced in this study, there is often a high correlation between inner-city minority and lower-SES student status. However, interracial exposure in schools and neighborhoods has also been found to trigger racial and ethnic conflict (Olzak, Shanahan, & West, 1994). While one study indicates that teachers in either predominantly African American or white schools can create classroom environments that support their students (Harmon, 2001), another suggests that resegregated schools perform poorly in math and science achievement when compared to desegregated schools (Ikpa, 2003). Several studies have found that public opinion over using bussing to desegregate schools with its intended benefits and actual outcomes varies considerably (McAndrews, 2001; Mickelson, 2001; Orfield, 1995).

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If we are to believe the indications of research that suggest FDK programs benefit children more than HDK programs, then we either need to offer FDK for all students — albeit while incurring a higher cost for the school system (Greifner, 2007) — or the bussing of suburban students into the inner-city Title I schools where FDK is offered should be considered a better overall solution even though that may impact the status of schools designated as Title I. In many cases a policy of bussing suburban students into the inner city could be used to achieve ethnic diversity between inner-city and suburban schools in a district while low-SES inner-city minority students could remain in FDK programs. However, this would require parents of suburban children to agree to have their students bussed into the inner city. Personal experience suggests to us that many suburban parents might oppose such a policy.

One of the arguments cited by a parent who opposes the bussing of inner-city students out to suburban schools contends that there could be a negative psychological impact for inner-city students that are being “dislodged” from their community (Roduta, 2004). One could easily argue that the reverse situation would be just as true for suburban students. Popular Hollywood movies such as Lean on Me and some national news programs have perpetuated the perception that inner-city schools are less safe and that drugs and weapons are more prevalent in inner-city neighborhoods. In some cases, it does appear that inner-city middle and high schools do have higher instances of discipline problems and illegal substance abuse. Yet is this perception a justification for a school district having a policy that prevents inner-city kindergarten children from completing a FDK program that has been demonstrated to improve their chances for academic success?

“…full-day kindergarten programs are a very important step in breaking the cycle of poverty in Indiana, and in any other state that chooses to adopt such a model.” (Brooks, 2008)

There is no question that these are complex issues. However, the findings indicate that low-SES minority inner-city students are better served by FDK programs than HDK programs in terms of academic achievement up through at least the third grade. At this time our economy is on the brink of cascading downward into what could become one of the worst global recessions anyone has ever experienced, and allocating additional state funding for FDK may sound fiscally irresponsible. Yet we must consider what is best for our society and our current youth and not make decisions that lead from small short-term gains to larger long-term losses. Without FDK, our predominantly minority urban and lower-SES kindergarten children stand to be placed at an educational disadvantage unless every school district is able to find the funding and resources required to offer FDK programs for all students.

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