Social and Emotional Development

The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation is known for the high quality of its research work, particularly its evaluations of federal and publicly funded workforce, education, and other programs. But while it turns out excellent research, it's typically much more hesitant to make unsolicited policy recommendations or attempt to influence federal or state policies. That's why a series of "Policy and Research Recommendations" briefs that MDRC published late last year, to provide guidance to the new administration and Congress, deserve particular attention from the policy community. The briefs address a broad range of topics within the areas of education, youth development, and workforce policy, but three are of particular relevance to early education:

In 2005 Yale researcher William Gilliam found that pre-kindergarten programs expell children with disturbing frequency. Pre-k programs expell nearly 7 out of 1,000 students annually--that's 3 times the rate at which public schools expell K-12 students. This shocking finding gained national news coverage, and raised important questions about how well our patchwork of public, private, and community-based pre-k providers is equipped to serve children with behavior and other problems.

Now Gilliam's back with a new report that looks at what policymakers and pre-k providers can do to reduce the number of pre-k expulsions. Gilliam offers seven recommendations: