High Quality Pre-K Starts with Supported Teachers: Results from a National Survey of Pre-K Teachers

My first year of teaching was in a pre-K classroom full of 15 three- and four-year-olds. This was somewhat unexpected since the teacher training I received was more focused on preparing to teach children in first through third grade. But I felt confident that the skills I learned would still apply to younger children. What I wasn’t sure of, even after several days of preparing my classroom and reviewing policies and procedures, was exactly what I should be teaching these students, many of whom were entering a classroom for the first time in their young lives.

At this point in time, the Common Core State Standards had been adopted by 40 states and DC, but they were of little help since the earliest grade they covered was kindergarten. Before the first day of school began, I was eventually given a quick overview of Building Blocks, a math-specific curriculum, as well as a binder full of age-appropriate activities focused on building language and literacy skills along with a suggested scope and sequence. While these resources were helpful, I remember thinking it odd that more time wasn’t spent on preparing new teachers like me on how to effectively use and differentiate the provided materials. This experience is not an unusual one for pre-K teachers, it seems. “Unlike the older grades, when I taught pre-K, some suggestions around curricula were made, but I was basically left to figure it out myself without much support,” one former pre-K teacher told me who now teaches first grade in a North Carolina public school.

Amid ongoing national debates about pre-K access and quality, discussions of the actual curriculum being taught to some of our youngest learners are often overlooked. That’s one reason it’s so heartening to have a research-backed publication like the NASEM report; the tide seems to be shifting as more experts call for urgency around understanding and improving pre-K curricular quality. And the report makes clear how important a role curricula play in a pre-K classroom, noting that “[a] well-planned, research-based, and preferably validated curriculum provides an essential scaffold that can guide early childhood educators on what to teach and when; how to engage children; and how to support adaptation for individual, cultural, and linguistic diversity.”

Over the past several years, states have been making much-needed investments into their pre-K programs. The number of children enrolled in state-funded pre-K reached an all-time high of about 1.75 million during the 2023-2024 school year. While the growth of pre-K access is undoubtedly positive, we know that high levels of access won’t translate into long-term gains unless pre-K programs are high-quality. One of the most important ways to ensure high-quality instruction is by investing in the pre-K teacher workforce and providing them with research-backed curricula to guide their planning. Luckily, the NASEM report released last year has been followed by the first American Pre-K Teacher Survey, RAND’s nationally representative survey of pre-K teachers in public schools. This survey provides new insights about curriculum use in pre-K classrooms by asking teachers about what curricula they use and how satisfied they feel about using it.

Administered in April and May 2024, it includes responses from just under 1,400 public school pre-K teachers in all 50 states and DC. A few findings from the survey are particularly notable. Given the importance of pre-K curricula in ensuring high-quality learning, it’s encouraging to see that almost all pre-K teachers surveyed (90 percent) reported using at least one commercial (as opposed to teacher-created) curriculum in their classrooms, with the majority using at least two different curricula. Sixty-seven percent of teachers reported using a comprehensive curriculum designed to cover all learning domains as one of their main instructional materials, while 54 percent said they use domain-specific curriculum that’s specifically focused on topics such as math, literacy, and social-emotional learning.

Potentially concerning is the fact that 36 percent of pre-K teachers reported only using comprehensive curricula without supplementing with a domain-specific curriculum. In one of its conclusions, the authors of the NASEM report point out potential problems with this approach: “When compared with domain-specific curricula, the most widely used comprehensive curricula have shown significantly smaller gains in domain-targeted outcomes, such as mathematics, science, literacy, and social-emotional development at kindergarten entry.” One of the report’s recommendations seeks to remedy this problem by urging program leaders to transition to implementing evidence-based curricula while still supporting the learning and development of the whole child.

There is certainly a place for the use of comprehensive curricula in pre-K classrooms, but relying solely on this type of curricula ignores recent evidence that domain-specific curricula with aligned professional development can help sustain gains made in pre-K. A former pre-K teacher in a District of Columbia charter school put it this way: “The curriculum we used that was supposed to cover all the topics didn’t always feel sufficient to me. For math especially, I would pull other materials off the internet to make sure my kids had enough exposure to some of the key concepts.”

When it comes to how teachers perceive the curricula they use, the vast majority think highly of the commercial materials they regularly employ. Ninety-four percent of survey respondents somewhat or strongly agreed that their materials promoted language and literacy development while 86 percent said the same of materials focused on early math skills. Almost all teachers (86 percent) felt that the curriculum materials they use are developmentally appropriate for their students. “When I started teaching pre-K it was my first year of teaching. I didn’t really know what would be too challenging or easy for such young children. So having something written out and pre-packaged helped reassure me that I was on the right track,” said the former pre-K teacher from the District of Columbia.

Pre-K teachers have a more nuanced view of how well their curricula meet the needs of certain populations of students, however. When asked about this, only 39 percent strongly agreed that their material met the needs of English learners and 29 percent said the same for students in special education. When it comes to providing culturally relevant instruction, only 37 percent strongly agreed that their current materials are adequate. In many ways, these data underscore the wisdom of the NASEM report’s decision to give “special attention to the needs of Black and Latina/o children, dual language learners, children with special needs, and children in poverty” when researching pre-K curricula.

The lack of appropriate materials for certain student populations was not the only challenge highlighted by the teachers. Specifically, fewer than half of teachers reported that they had enough time each week to work with a coach or mentor, despite research showing that such assistance helps pre-K teachers in implementing engaging curricula. Additionally, while we know that a smooth, coordinated transition from pre-K to kindergarten has multiple benefits, only 30 percent of teachers reported having dedicated time to coordinate with kindergarten teachers about their students’ upcoming transition.

The NASEM report is an important resource that should help the field continue to improve pre-K curricula. The national survey of pre-K teachers serves as a valuable supplement to the report and a reminder that, as the implementers of curricula, teachers require support to use it effectively and with fidelity.