Kindergarten Readiness

Early childhood education encompasses the quality and accessibility of educational investment for kids under 6 years old. Research suggests that addressing childhood education is a critical factor in improving the future educational attainment and socioeconomic transition of low-income communities. Poverty creates many barriers that impede young children’s development, placing them at a disadvantage even before they enter the classroom. The metric associated with early childhood education is “kindergarten readiness,” in alignment with the Ready for K Alliance.

Kentucky school districts evaluate kindergarten readiness using the BRIGANCE Early Childhood Kindergarten Screen III, which assesses child development across five areas:

  • Academic/Cognitive Development
  • Language Development
  • Physical Development
  • Self-Help Skills
  • Social and Emotional Skills

For a deeper discussion of kindergarten readiness, its importance, and its limitations, please see our 2021 Early Childhood Report.

Trends Over Time

Louisville students have consistently scored near the state average for kindergarten readiness. While scores were relatively stagnant for many years, there was a sharp dropoff in kindergarten readiness over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic (as shown by comparing scores for the 2019-2020 school year with the 2021-2022 school year). This school year, only 43% of kindergarteners entered JCPS ready to learn.

Differences by Race

Since 2014, racial disparities in kindergarten readiness among JCPS students have persisted. Kindergarten readiness fell across all four demographics presented here from 2020 to 2022, with the largest decreases among Black students, followed by Hispanic students.

Differences by Sex

Females students enter kindergarten more prepared than their male counterparts in JCPS and Kentucky public schools. The gap in kindergarten readiness between females and males is slightly smaller in JCPS than it is in the rest of Kentucky.

Differences by Free or Reduced Lunch Status

Breaking data down by Free or Reduced lunch eligibility gives us information o nhow kindergarten readiness relates to income. Students who qualify for free or reduced lunch lag behind their fellow students within JCPS and across the state of Kentucky. JCPS students not eligible for free or reduced lunch are performing significantly below the average for their Kentucky counterparts, while JCPS students eligible for free or reduced lunch outperform their peers in the rest of Kentucky. While both groups saw declines in kindergarten readiness over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, students from higher-income families saw a much larger decline in kindergarten readiness.

How did we get these numbers?

Our data comes from files available through the Kentucky Department of Education and the JCPS School Report Cards. Most numbers come directly from the sources without much calculation required. You can download all of the files we used to create these graphs here, and you can see how we crunched the data here.

Some notes:

  • The years on the graphs represent the end of the school year. (E.g. The 2022 data point represents the 2021-2022 school year.)
  • While some data exist for 2021, at first glance, there were very few students who took the BRIGANCE screener, so we have excluded it entirely.
  • We calculated numbers for students not eligible for free or reduced lunch using data for all students and students eligible for free and reduced lunch.
  • All data on JCPS students come directly from spreadsheets. Due to missing student counts in some Kentucky school districts in some years, we have imputed some student counts for small school districts in some years to create state averages and 25th and 75th percentiles each year. We acknowledge this limitation but feel comfortable including those numbers here since their purpose is just to provide a comparison for our focus on JCPS.

Continue Exploring with Related Data

Child Under 5 in Poverty

Multidimensional Poverty

Cost-Burdened Households

Public School Graduation Rate

Children Ages 3 and 4 Enrolled in Preschool

Early childhood education plays an important role in establishing academic foundations and future educational outcomes. Preschool enrollment for 3- and 4-year-olds is important for enabling them to enter kindergarten at the same level as their peers. The first years of a child’s schooling are very influential on their educational trajectory. Preschool enrollment is strongly associated with the educational attainment of caregivers. Those who have lower levels of educational attainment are less likely to enroll their own child in preschool.

Peer City Perspective

Louisville currently ranks 14th among its peer cities in rates of preschool enrollment, with 38.4% of children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in preschool.

Louisville is in the bottom cluster of its peer group according to a natural breaks algorithm. Cities in green are those that outperform their peers, cities in yellow represent the middle cluster, and those in red lag behind their peers on this indicator.

Where are Children Ages 3 and 4 Enrolled in Preschool? 

Fewer than 40% of Louisville children ages 3 and 4 are enrolled in preschool. In the map to the left, areas where more children ages 3 and 4 are enrolled in preschool are purple, while areas where fewer children ages 3 and 4 are enrolled in preschool are white. There are more 3- and 4-year olds enrolled in preschool east of I-65.

The Highlands has the highest concentration of children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in preschool, with over 72% of children enrolled. Conversely, the lowest concentration of of children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in preschool is located downtown, near the University of Louisville, where fewer than 11% of children ages 3 and 4 enrolled.

Scroll over the map to see values for each neighborhood. Zoom in to see street names that form that boundaries of each neighborhood.

 

Trends over time

Preschool enrollment in Louisville has decreased from 56% in 2000 to near the peer city mean of 45%. While the peer city average has remained largely stagnant since 2007, Louisville’s preschool enrollment has decreased substantially.

Comparison Between the Most and Least Improved Cities

The percentage of children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in preschool has fallen in all peer cities since 2000. Knoxville, the most improved city, has seen a resurgence in preschool enrollment over the past few years. Louisville, on the other hand, has seen a decrease over the same time frame.

Differences by Sex

Since 2012, more females have been enrolled in preschool than males, though the gap between the groups is closing.

Differences by Race

Unfortunately, the number of children in Louisville ages 3 and 4 is too small for us to draw reliable conclusions over time by race. Combining data from 2015 to 2019, we calculate that the percent of Black children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in preschool was likely between 25% and 40% over those five years. Our estimate for all children enrolled in preschool over the same timeframe is between 39% and 47%. We calculate these numbers using a 90% confidence interval, meaning that there is a 9 in 10 chance the true number is within each range and a 1 in 10 chance the number lies outside of each range.

Continue Exploring with Related Data

Kindergarten Readiness

Children Ages 5 to 17 in Poverty

Multidimensional Poverty

Unemployment

Children Under 5 in Poverty

Young children living in poverty or in a neighborhood of concentrated poverty experience unique barriers to food access, stable housing, employment, healthcare, and social support. These barriers can hinder a child’s ability to achieve academic success. In addition, children living below the poverty line may struggle with finding stable and substantial employment as adults.

Peer City Perspective

Louisville currently ranks 11th among its peer cities in child poverty among young children, with 24% of children under the age of 5 living in poverty. In 2018, the poverty line was $16,460 for a family of two and $25,100 for a family of four.

Louisville is in the middle of its peer group according to a natural breaks algorithm. Cities in green are those that outperform their peers, cities in yellow represent the middle cluster, and those in red are a group that lags behind its peers on this indicator.

Where is childhood poverty found in Louisville?

Although Louisville ranks 8th out of 17 cities in young child  poverty rates, child poverty varies substantially within the city. In the map to the left, areas with high rates of young child poverty are purple, and areas with average to low rates are white.

Young child poverty is most concentrated in Louisville’s western and downtown neighborhoods. Russell, California-Parkland, and Algonquin-Park Hill_Park Duvalle have young child poverty rates around 60%. The lowest rates of child poverty are in Floyd’s Fork, Northeast Jefferson, J-Town, and Fern Creek.

Scroll over the map to see values for each neighborhood. Zoom in to see street names that form the boundaries of each neighborhood.

Trends over time

Since 2013, there has been a downward trend in the Louisville for the number of children under 5 in poverty, though recent data suggest that the rate of young child poverty is leveling off or increasing. Louisville is currently below the peer mean and above the 25th percentile.

Comparison Most and Least Improved Cities

Memphis continues to be the lease improved city with 40% of its children under 5 living in poverty. They are over 15 percentage points above the peer mean. Louisville fell below the peer mean in 2013 and continues to improve. Six percentage points separate Louisville and the most improved peer city, Omaha.

Differences Based on Race

The percentage gap between Black and white children has yet to decrease. In Louisville, over 45% of Black children under 5 are living in poverty, compared to 13% of white children under 5.

Differences Based on Sex

The percentage of female and male children living in poverty in Louisville and our peer cities are approximately equal.

Continue Exploring with Related Data

Kindergarten Readiness

Multidimensional Poverty

Preventable Hospital Stays

Children Ages 5 to 17 in Poverty

Natural Breaks Algorithm

For each indicator, Greater Louisville Project assigns cities into one of three groups (high-performing, middle-of-the-pack, and low-performing) based on how they compare to other cities. The assignment is based on how cities naturally cluster on that indicator. Sometimes, the differences between cities are very small, and the difference between a city ranked 5th and 6th could simply be a matter of the sampling error that arises from using survey data. Thus, rather than always make a division that declares the top 5 to be the top tier, we use a natural breaks algorithm to look for a cluster of cities that is outperforming the rest, a cluster that is about average, and a cluster that is lagging. This clustering gives us a better indication of where Louisville is thriving and where Louisville has room to learn from cities that are doing better.

Z-Scores

Z-scores (or standardization) is a way to combine data with different units of measurement into a single index. The z-score is a measure of how far away a city (or census tract, etc.) is from the average city. In order to be comparable across different units of measurement, the z-score is the distance from the mean measured in standard deviations (e.g. if Louisville has a z-score of 1 it means Louisville is 1 standard deviation above the mean of its peer cities).

Data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's County Health Rankings use z-scores and all z-scores are relative to the mean of Louisville's peer cities. (On the County Health Rankings site z-scores are relative to all the counties in each state - thus z-scores reported by GLP will be different, because we are using a different reference group). The Greater Louisville Project also uses z-scores in our multidimensional poverty index, which compares each census tract to the mean of all census tracts in Louisville.