Children of the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study Go To School. Executive Summary

摘要

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the effects of preschool experiences--especially child care--on children's later performance in school. A substantial majority of preschoolers now participate in some form of child care before coming to school. The Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Center's Study, begun in 1993, was designed in part to examine the influence of typical center-based child care on children's development during their preschool years and then subsequently as they moved into the formal elementary education system. We have now followed these children through the end of second grade, four years after our initial contact with them when they were nearing the end of their next-to-last year in child care. The overall findings can be summarized in a few broad statements about the influence of center-based child care in America on children.