Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS)

Project

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS) program offers the first nationally representative study of early childhood development and education in the United States. The ECLS program currently has three separate longitudinal studies fielded by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K); the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B); the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011). These studies are intended to complement one another; together, they provide a picture of children’s development and education from birth through the elementary and middle school years.

Since the base year of the first ECLS study, the ECLS-K, AIR has provided support for study design; instrument development; assessment development; field testing; main study collection; database and database documentation development; and training of researchers on the various ECLS databases.

Read more about the studies at the National Center for Education Statistics website.

Related Work

1 Jul 2018
Report

English Language Program Participation Among Students in the Kindergarten Class of 2010-11: Spring 2011 to Spring 2012

Providing English language instruction has important implications for millions of children nationwide. This Statistics in Brief report uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, focused on the Kindergarten Class of 2010-11, to examine students who participated in English language programs.
22 May 2018
Brief

The Summer After Kindergarten: Children’s Experiences by Socioeconomic Characteristics

This Statistics in Brief analyzes student's participation in summer activities compared by two socioeconomic characteristics - household poverty status and parents' highest level of education. Data for socioeconomic characteristics was gathered from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 while data related to summer activity participation was collected from interviews with parents or guardians in the fall of 2011.
1 Mar 2018
Report

Findings From the Fourth-Grade Round of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011)

The Early Childhood Longitudinal study from the National Center for Education Statistics follows students who were kindergartners in 2011. This report provides information on select child and family characteristics including poverty status, parental education, family type, and primary home language as well as children's knowledge in reading, math, and science.
24 Feb 2017
Blog Post

What's the Research Behind Head Start's New Rules?

It’s been 40 years since performance standards were substantially revised for Head Start. The newly Revised Head Start Rules were approved and released last September. They include four major changes: increased duration, expanded access, special supports for vulnerable populations, and improved supports for teachers. In this blog post, Eboni Howard offers a run-down on the evidence-base for these new rules.
View all