(Reprint of Sen. Bob Beers 2-12-07 Newsletter)
Last week, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported that the Clark County School District has “proven” the effectiveness of all day kindergarten with a “longitudinal” study that found reading aptitude was 3% higher amongst children. If they took out the results of the non “at-risk” children, and just looked at “at-risk” children, the improvement was 8%.

What, then, was the percentage improvement amongst non “at-risk” children? Beers asked the Legislative Counsel Bureau staff to ask the Clark County School District.

The answer would depend on how many children were studied in the full-day kindergarten group, and how many of them were deemed “at-risk” vs. not “at-risk”. Simple mathematics dictates that it was below 3%, and in all likelihood near zero. According to a legislative counsel bureau analyst, “the figures for the low-risk students should be easy to calculate given the raw data.”

However, today for the second time, the Clark County School District refused to release the information. Here are the email exchanges, unedited:

2/9/2007

LCB: The report gives the differences in achievement by 2nd grade between half-day and full-day kindergarten students who are in at-risk categories (FRL in Table 12 & Non-English Proficient in Table 14). The legislator wants to know what the difference who are not in these categories, who are considered low-risk. I think he wants to compare the additional differences between at-risk and low-risk for full- and half-day kindergarten.

CCSD: Joe, in response to the question below, that info isn’t in the report…this is an interim report and I anticipate that the year-end report will have that data. However, based on discussions with folks in our research dept. who are conducting this research, I think it’s safe to say that our findings will be consistent with other research that says that benefits are greatest for the FRL and ELL populations. With the exception of the voluntary pay-for-K programs we have, these are the populations we are serving first, and will continue to serve as more funds become available.
Hope that helps.

2/12/2007

LCB: So there’s no way to come up with a percentage change in achievement for low-risk kids? The other data shows the percentages of low-risk, some risk, and at-risk children in the study and also the percentage increase in performance averaged over all the participants, and then the percentage increase for the at-risk kids. With the total number of kids in the survey, it seems like it’d be fairly straightforward to generate percentage for the other risk categories as well.

CCSD: In speaking with our research office, they offered this response to the above:
The Full/Extended Day Kindergarten Longitudinal (Interim) Study (FEDS-L) focused on the effects of full-day kindergarten on all students as well as two specific subgroups (FRL, ELL) highlighted in the current report.

These two subgroups comprise a significant population in the CCSD.
Students who have no FRL designation were not originally disaggregated for analysis because their poverty level/income status is in many cases unknown. According to federal guidelines, students who have no FRL designation only means that they have not applied for Free and Reduced Lunch. Some students are not assigned FRL status in low-income schools, even though they qualify for free and reduced lunch. Therefore, because we don’t know with certainty the FRL status of students who are not officially designated, it is generally not appropriate to do an analysis and draw any conclusions about these students.

Beers said, “CCSD’s refusal to answer the Legislature’s question is outrageous. Their study was done with taxpayer dollars. To suggest it is inappropriate to draw any conclusions about non “at-risk” students is absurd, all the more so because they used the same techniques to publicize conclusions about “at-risk” students just last week.”

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