Studies show that educational achievement gaps already exist at Kindergarten entry.  Children from low-income families are more likely to start school with limited language skills, health problems and social and emotional problems that interfere with learning.  The larger the gap at school entry, the harder it is to close.

Schools can improve the readiness of young children by making connections with local child care providers and preschools by creating policies that ensure smooth transitions to kindergarten.  Schools must be ready to address the diverse needs of the children and families in their community and be committed to the success of every child. 

 







Fifth National Meeting

This is the Fifth National Meeting of the 17-state School Readiness Indictors Initiative which aims to use child-well-being indicators to improve school readiness and ensure early school success.  Over the first two and a half years of the Initiative, states have worked individually and collectively to develop comprehensive sets of measures to monitor the physical, social, emotional, cognitive and economic well-being of young children.  Between now and the final national meeting of this initiative in May of 2004, states will select a set of indicators that reflect state policy goals and state investments in programs and policies for young children and families as well as child outcomes.  States will also put in place communications strategies to share their selected set of indicators with policymakers, opinion leaders and the public in order to improve school readiness in their states.

Meeting Objectives:

  • To share state strategies and plans for the final six months of the initiative, including ideas for written indicator products, progress in collecting and analyzing data, communication strategies for the release of school readiness indicators and plans to continue to build an early childhood agenda in the state.
  • To explore and develop policy strategies for early childhood programs and systems.
  • To consider information from the Birth to Three Indicators Residency Roundtable as states develop their set of school readiness indicators.
  • To highlight data successes and to share ideas for solving data challenges in critical policy areas.
  • To provide opportunities for participants to meet in state and cross-state teams to apply information from experts and initiative colleagues to their own state work.

 
       

© 2005, School Readiness Indicators Initiative
One Union Station Providence, RI 02903 401.351.9400 fax 401.351.1758
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The School Readiness Indicators Initiative is supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
The 17-state initiative is managed by Rhode Island KIDS COUNT