Strengthening School Readiness for All: Impacts of New York City's Pre-K for All Professional Learning on Teacher Practice and Children's School Readiness

Why clinicians should know about it

• Picked for Pediatrics and Child Health (top studies of the week, 30 August 2026): RCTs of NYC Pre‑K professional learning on teacher practice and

Abstract

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) can be an effective strategy for bridging disconnects among research, policy, and practice, as they present unique opportunities for rigorous research that produces clear, actionable findings that can directly inform the work of governmental agencies on high-priority topics. This paper describes two interconnected randomized controlled trials conducted by a decade-long RPP between researchers at New York University (NYU) and New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) policy leaders in the Division of Early Childhood Education (DECE), starting at the launch of New York City's universal pre-K system. This RPP navigated opportunities and challenges for conducting rigorous research to evaluate professional learning (PL) for pre-K teachers assigned to "Explore," a math-focused PL approach (Study 1) or "Create," an arts-focused PL approach (Study 2). In each study, we examined impacts on classroom practice and quality (using observation data collected by NYCPS) and children's school readiness (using direct assessment data collected by NYU), relative to content-agnostic PL serving as a business-as-usual control. Results indicated that Explore did not have significant impacts (relative to control), likely because of low levels of implementation. In contrast, Create had several significant and substantively meaningful positive impacts (relative to control) on teacher practice, quality, and children's learning. Overall, our findings suggest that PL implemented by a large district at scale can have positive impacts when the PL model is robust, when PL has clear targets or focus, and when participation in PL is sufficient. We discuss how findings generated by our RPP have informed DECE's work, as well as challenges encountered conducting the research and utilizing findings, particularly during a mayoral transition. The study was pre-registered with Open Science Framework in July 2023.

Abstract as published, via PubMed.