Recently, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2023–24 (ECLS-K:2024) wrapped up our first school year of data collection! Among the data collected was information provided by the study children's parents. Without parents' participation in the ECLS-K:2024, we wouldn't have a detailed understanding of America's children, their families, and their lives outside of school. Parents' participation allows us to explore how different factors—at home and at school—relate to children's development and learning over time.
For ECLS-K:2024, much of the information we are collecting from parents has been collected from kindergartners' parents in earlier ECLS program studies. Having data about different group of kindergartners across time will allow NCES and researchers to examine changes over the past decades. One thing that's new for the ECLS-K:2024 are questions on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as how the pandemic affected parents and their family, including the study child. This information will help the public and state, local, and federal policymakers understand how to better support this generation of children.
For past ECLS kindergarten cohorts, we have collected a wealth of demographic data about participating children's families that can be analyzed in conjunction with other data collected directly from the children themselves and their schools and teachers to shed light on influences on children's school experiences and development. For instance, The Condition of Education's “Characteristics of Children's Families” uses data from the ECLS program studies along with other National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) study data to help us understand trends in children's family composition over the years, such as the percentage of children living with a single male parent, with a single female parent, and in two-parent households. The ECLS-K:2024 data being collected now will allow us to add to these analyses, for example by examining data on same sex parent households and multigenerational households.
Information on many parental and family characteristics is provided by parents in the ECLS-K:2024. The ECLS-K:2024 data extends our view, at the national level, of children's family backgrounds and how they have changed over the years on a variety of dimensions beyond type of parent or parents in household. For example, from an analysis of the ECLS-K:2011 data, we know that 84 percent of first-time kindergartners in 2010-11 came from a household with English as the primary home language, 15 percent from a household with a language other than English as the primary home language, and 1 percent from a household with multiple home languages (no primary language identified). Has this pattern in family home language of our nation's kindergartners changed since 2010-11? The ECLS-K:2024 data parents provided last school year will let us know.
The ECLS study team, as well as thousands of researchers, policymakers, educators, and parents, are excited to see what the ECLS-K:2024 parent-provided data tell us about today's kindergartners and families, as well as any changes we see for today's kindergartners as compared to those from 1998-99 and 2010-11. Thank you to our ECLS-K:2024 parents for contributing to the study and helping us learn more about America's children and families!
Want to learn more?
- Check out this brief video about the ECLS program.
- Read up on the ECLS-K:2024 on NCES's ECLS website or our ECLS website for study participants.
- Find resources for parents, teachers, and school administrators that use ECLS and other NCES data in our ECLS newsletters.
- Find other ECLS posts on the NCES Blog.
- Sign up for the NCES Newsflash.
- Follow NCES on LinkedIn, X, and Facebook.
Plus, be on the lookout early this fall for the next ECLS blog post celebrating the ECLS-K:2024, which will highlight schools, teachers, and principals. Stay tuned!
By Korrie Johnson and Jill Carlivati McCarroll, NCES
