Ron Place did his Doctoral Dissertation on "The Impact of the Harrison School District Early Learning Programs on Subsequent Student Achievement".

Abstract of the Dissertation:

Harrison School District is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The demographics of the students of the district are primarily low economic and high minority. As the research in Chapter Two documents, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds do not perform academically as well as children from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Also, minority children demonstrate less academic achievement than white (non-Hispanic) children.

The Federal Head Start Program is utilized as the district early learning program because of the demographics of the students.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students who participated in the Harrison School District Early Learning Program demonstrated a subsequent academic achievement equal to the students who began their educational experience in the Harrison School District who did not participate in a preschool program. Stated differently, were the students who qualified for the Harrison Preschool Program given the necessary preparation to compete with those students who did not quality and therefore did not attend the Harrison Preschool Program?

Those who attended the Harrison Early Learning Program and have remained in the district formed the study group for this research. Students who have attended the Harrison School District since kindergarten who did not attend the Harrison Early Learning Program, or any other preschool program, comprised the control group.

The achievement comparisons were made utilizing the Colorado Student Assessment Program and the STAR Assessment by Renaissance Learning. Comparisons of the academic performances of the students began in the third grade and were made for each grade through the 12th grade.

Elementary age students in the Harrison School District who do not perform acceptably on other assessments described in Chapter Four are placed on an Individual Education Plan (IEP). A third measure of comparison was the percentage of study group students placement on an IEP versus the percentage of control group students placed on an IEP.

The oldest students in the study attended the Harrison Preschool Program during the 1989-1990 school year. This allowed a longevity component to investigate whether any achievement differences that might have been realized were sustainable throughout the students' K12 education.

The result of this study documented there was no statistical difference between the subsequent academic achievement of the study group and the control group. Therefore the conclusion of this research is that the lower socio-economic students who attended the Harrison School District Preschool Program received a sufficient and adequate opportunity to compete academically with their more advantaged peers who generally were comprised of higher socio-economic children.