The Preschool Promise program, a nonprofit serving Dayton, OH area preschoolers and their families, is closing the achievement gap through school readiness, equity, and resources. The program concentrates on a prominent issue experienced not only in the Dayton community but across a number of US communities: that far too many African-American and Appalachian preschoolers do not share the same advantages and privileges as their middle-class peers. This inequality results in a large achievement gap – students from racially diverse backgrounds fare worse on success measures, such as grades, standardized test scores, course selection, dropout rates, and college-completion rates.

The Preschool Promise program utilizes two measures of student gain: Pearson’s Bracken Assessment to measure preschoolers’ basic letter/number/shape-type knowledge and the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS App™) to measure executive function skills, which are often described as the key set of skills required for impulse control in children, as well as academic and life success.

To read more about the Preschool Promise program visit Dayton Daily News here.