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Indicator

52% of Central Texas Children Enter Kindergarten School Ready

Indicator: % of children entering kindergarten school ready

Significance of Indicator: Children are born ready to learn. What takes place between birth and school entry greatly deter-mines whether they will enter school ready for success. Early experiences can also determine whether a gap in competencies will exist before a child steps into a classroom, leading to a wide range of problems that are significantly more difficult, as well as more expensive, to address later on.

what the data tell us

A new study shows that slightly more than half of Central Texas children entered kindergarten school ready in 2010.
  A Child Coloring

Definition: % of children who were assessed school ready by the Central Texas Guide for School Readiness

Data Source: E3 Alliance

Data Considerations: This data is based on a sample of 913 students from the following school districts: Austin, Bastrop, Hays, Manor, Not Your Ordinary School (NYOS), Pflugerville, San Marcos and Travis. This baseline data was collected during assessments done over kindergarteners' first six to nine weeks of school. Children were assessed across four domains of child development: social/emotional, language and communication, early literacy, and mathematics.

The Story Behind the indicator

The link between school readiness and school achievement is well established. Gaps in children's ability not only show up early, but they stay relatively constant after age eight. Poor school readiness is highly correlated with low maternal education, family poverty, and having parents whose primary language is not English reports the National Center for Education Statistics. The E3 Alliance states that these same demographics are rapidly growing in Central Texas. Cutting edge neuroscience and economics research point to an effective solution to this growing problem -- high-quality, research-based, child and family-serving programs can effectively narrow or close the school readiness gap. Unfortunately, there are few and scattered resources serving children ages 0 to four years. To learn more about the story behind school readiness in our community, click here.

Some local efforts to improve this indicator
  • The E3 Alliance's Blueprint for Educational Change seeks to improve educational outcomes across the Central Texas region from pre-k through college through a collaborative process that engages parents, students, school personnel and mem-bers of the larger community.
  • United Way Capital Area's Success by 6 program is a community collaborative of over 30 organizations working together to ensure that children enter kindergarten happy, healthy and prepared for school success.
 

A Closer look at the story behind the indicators

Forty-eight percent of children were kindergarten ready in the emerging literacy domain which includes skills such as identifying letters, producing the correct sounds for letters, and retelling or re-enacting stories after they are read aloud. Children were much more likely to be kindergarten ready in other competency domains: language & communication (64%), mathematics (63%), and social-emotional development (62%).
% of Central Texas Children Who Were Kindergarten Ready by Competency Domain

Definition: % of children who were assessed school ready in each of the assessed competencies (emerging literacy, language and communication, mathematics, and social/emotional development) by the Central Texas Guide for School Readiness

Data Source: E3 Alliance

Data Considerations: This data is based on a sample of 913 students from the following school districts: Austin, Bastrop, Hays, Manor, NYOS, Pflugerville, San Marcos and Travis. This baseline data was collected during assessments done over kindergarteners' first six to nine weeks of school.

Children who are not economically disadvantaged are more likely to be kindergarten ready than their low-income peers (66% vs. 37%).

Definition: % of children who were assessed school ready by the Central Texas Guide for School Readiness by economic status

Data Source: E3 Alliance

Data Considerations: This data is based on a sample of 913 students from the following school districts: Austin, Bastrop, Hays, Manor, NYOS, Pflugerville, San Marcos and Travis. This baseline data was collected during assessments done over kindergarteners' first six to nine weeks of school. Children were assessed across four domains of child development: social/emotional, language and communication, early literacy, and mathematics.

 % of Central Texas Children Who are Kindergarten Ready by Economic Status

Local kindergarten readiness rates did not greatly differ between English-language learners and children who were English proficient (45% vs. 48%).
% of Central Texas children who were kindergarten ready by English proficiency

Definition: % of children who were assessed school ready by the Central Texas Guide for School Readiness by English proficiency

Data Source: E3 Alliance

Data Considerations: This data is based on a sample of 913 students from the following school districts: Austin, Bastrop, Hays, Manor, Not Your Ordinary School (NYOS), Pflugerville, San Marcos and Travis. This baseline data was collected during assessments done over kindergarteners' first six to nine weeks of school. Children were assessed across four domains of child development: social/emotional, language and communication, early literacy, and mathematics.

Girls are more likely to be kindergarten ready than boys (54% vs. 39%).

Definition: % of children who were assessed school ready by the Central Texas Guide for School Readiness by gender

Data Source: E3 Alliance

Data Considerations: This data is based on a sample of 913 students from the following school districts: Austin, Bastrop, Hays, Manor, Not Your Ordinary School (NYOS), Pflugerville, San Marcos and Travis. This baseline data was collected during assessments done over kindergarteners' first six to nine weeks of school. Children were assessed across four domains of child development: social/emotional, language and communication, early literacy, and mathematics.

 % of Central Texas children who are kindergarten ready by gender

Children who attended a prekindergarten program were more likely to be kindergarten ready than children who did not attend a pre-kindergarten program (49% vs. 30%).
% of Central Texas children who are kindergarten ready by preschool attendance

Definition: % of children who were assessed school ready by the Central Texas Guide for School Readiness by preschool attendance

Data Source: E3 Alliance

Data Considerations: This data is based on a sample of 913 students from the following school districts: Austin, Bastrop, Hays, Manor, Not Your Ordinary School (NYOS), Pflugerville, San Marcos and Travis. This baseline data was collected during assessments done over kindergarteners' first six to nine weeks of school. Children were assessed across four domains of child development: social/emotional, language and communication, early literacy, and mathematics.

The percentage of births to mothers with no high school diploma has declined in Travis County over the past four years. Meanwhile, in Caldwell County, the percentage of births to mothers with no high school diploma has sharply increased since 2008.

Definition: % of births to mothers with no high school diploma, Texas residents

Data Source: Texas Department of State Health Services—Center for Health Statistics

Data Considerations: The 2009 data is provisional meaning that the data is incomplete and has not been edited by the Center for Health Statistics.

 % of births to mothers with no high school diploma

While births to mothers with no high school diploma have declined slightly over time, there remain great disparities by race and ethnicity. In 2008, 59% of births to mothers with no high school diploma were to Hispanics and 20% were to African Americans. Meanwhile, only 5% of births to mothers with no high school diploma were to Whites and 5% were to those of other races and ethnicities.
% of births to mothers with no high school diploma by race/ethnicity

Definition: % of births to mothers with no high school diploma, Texas residents, by mother's race/ethnicity

Data Source: Texas Department of State Health Services—Center for Health Statistics

Data Considerations: Birth data are derived from a subset of variables collected on the Texas Certificate of Live Birth.

The percentage of children under the age of five who live in poverty increased for all geographic regions on the graph from 2008-2009.

Definition: % of children under the age of five living below the federal poverty level for the past 12 months

Data Source: American Community Survey

Data Considerations: The American Community Survey samples 3% of the Nation's population. Due to small sample sizes, margins of error are increased and hard to reach populations may not be accurately represented in the data.

 % of children under the age of 5 who are living in poverty