skip to main content
Washington State Institute for Public Policy

Use the search fields below to find specific publications that match certain criteria. If you want to find other information on our website that is not publications, you can use the search field in the navigation bar at the top, or click here to search the entire website.

Use the dropdown to select the field in which you would like to perform a keyword search.

Input the keyword you would like to search by in the textbox.

You can put multiple words inside quotes "like this" to indicate that you only want results where the entire phrase is found.

You can use the minus symbol "( - )" to indicate you only want results without the indicated word, such as: "teacher -substitute".


Select a publication author(s) to filter results by author. Once selected, you may remove an author from the search by clicking the "x".
"ANY of these authors" will return all results that include any of the authors you specified in your search criteria.

"ALL of these authors" will return only those results that include every author you specified in your search criteria.


Select a topic(s) to filter results by topic. Once selected, you may remove a topic from the search by clicking the "x".
"ANY of these topics" will return all results that include any of the topics you specified in your search criteria.

"ALL of these topics" will return only those results that include every topic you specified in your search criteria.


Select a date range if you would like to only see results published during a specified time period.

Publications

Found 1 results

Evaluation of the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program: Kindergarten Readiness for School-and Part-Day Enrollees

Open Publication PDF

Julia Cramer, Amani Rashid - January 2022

The Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) was created in 1985 and is a statewide program that provides preschool education and wraparound services to low-income children and their families. Most children are eligible for ECEAP services if they are three or four years old and live in households with income less than or equal to 110% of the federal poverty level. Eligible children can enroll in ECEAP for Part-Day classes, or for longer periods of time in School Day or Working Day classes.

In 2019, the Washington State Legislature directed WSIPP to examine ECEAP’s dosage models. We operationalized this legislative directive by comparing outcomes between children enrolled in School Day and Part Day classes. In our sample, we include children who enrolled in ECEAP (when they were four years old) between academic years 2015-2019 and subsequently enrolled in kindergarten the following year.

Overall, we found a positive relationship between School-Day enrollment and children’s kindergarten readiness, as measured by the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) assessment. Upon further analysis, we found that children in School Day classes were more likely to meet expectations in physical, cognitive, literacy, and mathematics domains on the WaKIDS assessment. Findings from subgroup analyses suggest that holding all other factors constant, the estimated size of the relationship between School-Day enrollment and kindergarten readiness is largest among non-Hispanic BIPOC and White children. We did not observe a relationship between School-Day enrollment and kindergarten readiness among Hispanic children. This report describes our legislative assignment, research questions, the methodological approach we used, main findings, and limitations in more detail.

In addition to examining ECEAP’s dosage models, the 2019 legislation also directed WSIPP to evaluate the long-and short-term effects of ECEAP. Ultimately, results from these two reports suggest that children who enroll in ECEAP are more likely to be kindergarten ready (than similar non-participants) and among ECEAP enrollees, those in longer class periods (School Day) are more likely to be kindergarten-ready than peers in Part Day.

Related: