Strategy 3: Improve Accountability for Early Childhood and Development Programs.
In This Section
Case Study: Oregon Department of Education
3.2: Create evaluations assessing the quality of early childhood education and development programs.
Policy Actions to Improve Accountability for Early Childhood Programs
Tools to Implement Early Childhood Education and Development Strategies
3.1: Develop a comprehensive and unified data collection system for early childhood education and development programs.
As the first point of entry into the K-12 educational system, early childhood and development programs should also contribute to systems that collect and maintain data on the developmental and educational progress of each student. Promising efforts by groups such as the Early Childhood Data Collaborative recognize the importance of connecting early childhood data systems to longitudinal data systems already being developed and used by states to track individual students over the course of their learning careers. While implementation should be led by the states, the federal government can offer funding to support implementation and maintenance of the system. Localities should be responsible for ensuring data entry and interpretation training for users.
Potential Policy Actors:
- Federal legislators and/or policymakers
- State legislators
- State education agencies and boards of education
- Local education agencies
CASE STUDY: The Oregon Department of Education is a model for an early education data system. After having received two previous State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) grants, Oregon received an additional award in 2009 for develop Project ALDER, a program that expands and enhances the state’s already existing educational data collection system to enable stakeholders to examine data on student progress from early childhood education to career. Some of the expected outcomes of the project will be to “ Design and implement K-12 teacher-student linkage components that allow subsequent reporting to support instructional decision making and potential analysis of teacher-level variables that may impact student achievement at the elementary and secondary levels; to develop policies, procedures and partnerships needed to expand collection and integration of early childhood, postsecondary success and workforce data; and to design and implement an active multi-state and multi-sector data exchange with the states of Washington, Hawaii and Idaho through the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE).”
3.2: Create evaluations assessing the quality of early childhood education and development programs.
Although children are not assessed on academic achievement measures, early childhood education and development programs themselves should be subject to performance measures that determine and help to maintain their quality. By developing standard measures of the content and performance of these programs, we can establish nationwide comparability and quality control among programs in and between states.
Potential Policy Actors:
- Federal legislators and/or policymakers
- State legislators
- State education agencies
3.3: Require states to publicly report on access to and quality of early childhood education and development programs.
Public reporting gives residents a clear understanding of the potential barriers and opportunities afforded by early childhood education and development programs in their state. Issuing regular reports gives residents and policymakers access to current important information regarding program quality and tools with which to advocate for necessary change.
Potential Policy Actors:
- Federal legislators and/or policymakers
- State legislators
- State education agencies
Policy Actions to Improve Accountability for Early Childhood Programs
- The federal government can maintain and increase its investment in the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) grants program and provide additional support and technical assistance toward the development of interstate and cross-jurisdictional data collection and sharing.
- State education agencies can seek funding from the federal government and other sources to explore the uses of the longitudinal data systems at the earliest possible stage in the educational pipeline, and partner with states with mature data collection systems to develop protocols and obtain best practices. State education agencies that have data systems that are already operational should set timelines and benchmarks for integrating early education data with other stages of the educational pipeline and other public systems (e.g., child welfare departments) that impact children’s educational prospects. LEAs can be required to collect data and issue regular reports that measure quality and outcomes, and populations served.
- State education agencies can expand their current assessment rubric for early education programs beyond licensure-focused standards (e.g., prescribing child-adult ratios) and include more rigorous early learning and program standards, including curriculum requirements for kindergarten preparation, and minimal teacher certification standards.
- Local education agencies can partner with other jurisdictions, the state and the federal government to integrate training on longitudinal data systems use and management as a core part of professional development and leadership development for educators and leaders.
EXAMPLE: QUALITYstarsNY is a project of the New York Early Childhood Advisory Council created to “support efforts of early care and learning programs” in the state and to “provide parents the information they need to make a more informed choice” about their child’s early care and learning. The program is a voluntary rating system designed to increase the quality of early learning and care. The project monitors the outcomes from a range of strategies in early education and care using data to provide strategic direction and advice to the state on early childhood issues. There are four categories of standards utilized by the project to assess early learning and care programs: family engagement, learning environment, qualifications and experience, and leadership and management. The first evaluation of the program was released in April 2011 and plans are underway to assess the evaluator recommendations and revise the program before launching it statewide.
Action Steps for Advocates
- Find out what data your state and locality collects, at what stage that data is collected, and who has access to it and for what purposes.
- Lobby your state legislature and state education agencies for the development of a coherent, transparent plan for unified early education data collection if one does not exist, and include a timeline for implementation and provisions that outline parental and community rights and responsibilities.
- Demand parental and community input on the development of assessment standards of early childhood education programs, and periodic reports on results of those assessments.
