Kentucky State Department of Education Leverages Hanover Data Analysts

Case Study
Kentucky State Department of Education

Supporting KDE’s Strategic Research Plan and State Kindergarten readiness goals.

Challenge

Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) needed a data-savvy partner to help address key questions on kindergarten readiness in its strategic research plan. Hanover identified three main research questions to guide the strategy:

Do students’ kindergarten readiness rates differ by their Pre-K care settings?
Does the availability of each Pre-K care setting type differ across Kentucky’s regional networks?
Do differences in the availability of Pre-K care settings correlate with the kindergarten readiness of a regional network?

Solution

To address each research question, Hanover developed three distinct research strategies:

Descriptive Analyses: Hanover collected state-level public data to compare kindergarten readiness percentages between student groups from the following Pre-K care setting types:

State-funded
Head Start
Child Care/Private Preschool
Home Care
Other

Cross-Reference Data: To identify regional trends in Pre-K care setting availability, Hanover employed a three-step approach with district-level data:

Match districts to their corresponding regional networks
Aggregate district enrollments for all Pre-K care settings
Divide Pre-K care setting enrollments by total enrollments in each network to determine availability percentages

Regression Analyses: Hanover estimated associations between kindergarten readiness percentages and the number of Pre-K care settings available.

Outcome

By partnering with Hanover Research, KDE gathered key data on its progress toward its goal of 64.1% kindergarten readiness by 2017.

Child Care Students are More Kindergarten Ready

Students from child care settings have the highest kindergarten readiness rate (70%), while students from home settings have the lowest (38%).

Gaps Exist in Pre-K Care Setting Availability

Certain regional networks have significantly fewer state-funded child care settings
State funded centers enroll
the greatest percentage of
students across the five networks

Number of Available Settings Predicts Kindergarten Readiness
Schools with four Pre-K care settings have a higher kindergarten readiness rate than schools with no prior settings (3.72 percentage points).

The Client

Kentucky State Department of Education

INDUSTRY

Government, Education

Headquarters

Frankfort, KY

Website

https://education.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx

Research Methodologies

Data Analysis

Develop strategic planning and achieve organizational goals

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