Teacher/Child Interactions Matter

"Preschools that are highly ranked by state evaluation systems produce outcomes for children that are not significantly better than lower-ranked programs because those systems may be including too many indicators," concluded Christina Samuels in her Education Week article, "Study: Preschool Rating Systems Disconnected from Child Outcomes," reporting on a study released this month in the journal Science.  Samuels commented...

"Researchers tried to replicate, as closely as possible, the scoring algorithms that states use in their QRIS rankings.  All of the states measured preschools on staff qualifications, staff:child ratio and group size, family partnerships, and learning environments.  The researchers also created an additional measure, teacher-child interactions, which was evaluated through the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, or CLASS....

"After linking outcomes to the evaluation measures, researchers found that teacher interactions had the highest connection to student learning, followed by learning environment. Teacher qualifications, class size, and family partnerships had a weaker and sometimes inconsistent connection.  Thus, rating systems that combined all those measures also had a weaker and less consistent connection to child outcomes, the study showed."

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