Challenges in Using Data from a Large Urban School District to Answer Questions about the Impacts of Children Entering Kindergarten Not Socially-Behaviorally Ready to Learn

Introduction: Public school districts are tasked with preparing children to be college and career ready starting in kindergarten. To do this effectively, districts need a strong understanding of factors that promote and hinder children’s school success so they can intervene accordingly. Too often, it is assumed that such questions cannot be answered with information that districts collect as part of everyday practice as these data come with certain limitations (e.g., imperfect measures of key constructs, significant missing data). However, much can be learned by taking advantage of these large administrative datasets. This study will illustrate how data from a large urban district can be used to understand the impact of entering kindergarten not socially-behaviorally ready to learn on children’s academic outcomes through third grade, and how kindergarten entry age and exposure to public preK prior to kindergarten moderate these relations. Challenges with using administrative data to answer these questions will be described.

Method: This study used administrative data from ~12,000 students enrolled in 121 Baltimore City Public Schools from 2007-2013 (85% African American; 83% low-income). School readiness assessments were collected in fall of kindergarten using the Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR), a portfolio-based assessment measuring 7 domains: social-behavioral skills, language/literacy, mathematics, social studies, scientific thinking, physical development, and arts. Student demographics (kindergarten entry age, gender, race/ethnicity, low-income status), and whether students were chronically absent from kindergarten, English Language Learners in kindergarten, and attended public PreK were included as covariates. Multi-level modeling, accounting for nesting within schools where students took the MMSR, was used to examine associations between social-behavioral readiness in kindergarten, kindergarten entry age and public Prek participation, and three outcomes through 3rd grade: being suspended/expelled, receiving special education services, being retained.

Results: Initial multi-level models indicated that after controlling for all other MMSR domains, students not identified as socially-behaviorally ready for kindergarten were more likely to experience all three outcomes. Analyses to understand whether kindergarten entry age and participation in public preK moderate these relations are in process. Key challenges encountered in using administrative data included: 1) data/measure quality issues (e.g., social-behavioral readiness measure failed to tap all aspects of construct), and 2) how best to handle missing data due to students moving out of and back in to the district over the course of the study.

Conclusions: Findings and challenges have implications for use of big administrative datasets to inform educational policies and practices.