The primary purpose of the 2017-2018 NC Pre-Kindergarten (NC Pre-K) Evaluation was to examine the effectiveness of the NC Pre-K Program using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. Because children are randomly assigned to either receive NC Pre-K (treatment) or not (control) in an RCT, differences in outcomes can be causally attributed to treatment rather than to other differences between the children and families in the two different groups. This small-scale study is designed to follow children longitudinally from pre-k into elementary school in order to examine the short- and longer-term effects. The current study (2017-2018) provided baseline data during the pre-k year for 582 children who were randomly assigned to either NC Pre-K (treatment=473) or the waitlist (control=109) in two selected counties with large waitlists (with very few crossovers between groups). (author abstract)