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Chapter 104
Purpose: The Even Start program supports family-centered educational programs that involve parents and children in a cooperative effort to help parents become full partners in the education of their children and to assist children in reaching their full potential as learners.
To be eligible for Even Start, a family must have an parent who is eligible to participate in an adult education program under the Adult Education Act and one or more of their children less than 8 years of age. Even Start projects must provide participating families with an integrated program of early childhood education, adult basic education, and parenting education. The program's design is based on the notion that these components build on each other and that families need to receive all three services, not just one or two, in order to effect lasting change and improve children's school success.
The Department awards formula grants to State education agencies that, in turn, make competitive discretionary grants to local education agencies and community-based organizations for demonstration programs. In addition to the State grant programs, funds are set aside for special discretionary grants to State education agencies for migrant programs and to Indian tribes and organizations.
Congress expects the program to yield information of use to policymakers and to States and local agencies planning family literacy programs. The Even Start legislation requires an annual independent evaluation of the program and encourages projects to apply to the National Diffusion Network for consideration as dissemination sites.
Funding History:
| Fiscal Year | Appropriation |
|---|---|
| 1989 | $14,820,000 |
| 1990 | 24,201,000 |
| 1991 | 49,770,000 |
| 1992 | 70,000,000 |
| 1993 | 89,123,000 |
| 1994 | 91,373,000 |
Virtually all Even Start projects offer the three required core instructional services of adult education, parenting education, and early childhood education. They also offer some instructional services in a home-based setting, some services to parents and children together, and appropriate support services to enable families to participate fully in Even Start's core services.
Based on data reported for the first 4 years of the program, Even Start projects are serving the intended population. All participating Even Start households had at least one child between birth and age seven, 79 percent of the adults who participated in Even Start core services did not complete high school, and 66 percent of Even Start families had total annual income (earned income plus public assistance) under $10,000. The Even Start population can be further described as follows:
LEP Adults. Even Start adults who have limited English proficiency (LEP) can be characterized as follows: 86 percent were educated outside of the U.S., 60 percent did not reach the ninth grade, 78 percent were not employed at the time they joined Even Start, 83 percent had an annual income of less than $15,000, and 18 percent were single parents.
Adults Who Enter with a Diploma or GED. Twenty-one percent of the adults who participated in Even Start entered already having attained a high school diploma or a GED. While this is less than the 33 percent of adults who enter regular adult education programs with a diploma, questions have been raised about the fairness of serving these potentially less-needy adults in Even Start. Data show that adults who enter Even Start with a diploma or GED have characteristics which still suggest the need for Even Start services: 40 percent were single parents, 67 percent were not employed, 78 percent had annual income under $15,000, and 54 percent relied on government assistance for their primary source of income. In addition, the average Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) reading score for these adults is 233, quite close to the average of 230 for adults who reached grades 9-12 prior to joining Even Start. This indicates that, in spite of their credentials, adults who entered the program with a GED or diploma are not functioning at a higher level than their less-credentialed counterparts.
Number of Participating Families. The number of families participating in Even Start has increased over time. This is due both to the addition of new projects and to improved efficiency among existing projects. During the 1989-90 school year, when Even Start began, 76 projects served about 2,500 families, an average of 33 families per project. By the 1992-93 school year, the program had grown to 340 projects which served about 20,000 families, or 59 families per project.
Length of Participation. Although Even Start projects are funded for 4 years, relatively few families take part for that amount of time. Of the families that began Even Start in 1989-90, 53 percent participated only in that first year, 24 percent participated in both the first and second program years, 13 percent participated in the first 3 program years, and 10 percent participated in all 4 years.
Adult Education. Almost all (93 percent) of the projects reported that they provided services to prepare adults to attain a GED certificate, 85 percent provided services in adult education, 81 percent provided services in adult secondary education, and 61 percent provided instruction in English as a second language (ESL).
Parenting Education. Even Start projects provided a wide range of services to help parents understand and enrich their child's development. For example, projects helped families make use of services provided by other social service agencies, discussed parents' role in the education of their children, oriented parents and children to school routines, taught parents about child development, trained parents in child behavior management, worked to build parents' self-esteem, and instructed parents in life skills and in principles of health and nutrition. Each of these different types of parenting education was provided by 90 percent or more of the Even Start projects.
Support Services. Support services remove barriers that could restrict a family's ability to participate in Even Start core instructional and educational services. Several types of support services were provided by 80 percent or more of the projects including transportation, family advocacy assistance, nutrition services, counseling services, and child care.
Cooperative Arrangements. Even Start projects are required to establish cooperative arrangements with other agencies to avoid duplicating services. This strategy allows optimal use of limited resources so that projects can concentrate on filling service gaps. Collaboration and cooperative arrangements were, indeed, a key focus of Even Start projects. During the 1992-93 program year, Even Start projects were involved in more than 6,000 cooperative arrangements to provide core services, an average of 20 cooperative arrangements per project. Forty-two percent of the arrangements were for parenting education, 27 percent were for adult basic education, and 31 percent were for early childhood education. The most common cooperators were other departments and programs within the public schools; local, county, State or tribal agencies; and postsecondary institutions.
The Federal cost per Even Start family declined over the life of the program, from $5,894 in 1989-90 to $3,669 in 1990-91, and again to $2,503 in 1991-92. This is due to increases in the number of families served each year, indicating that over time, projects have matured and become more efficient. Even Start projects also obtain substantial resources (e.g., matching funds, in-kind contributions, and the value of referred services), in addition to their Federal Even Start funds, in order to deliver appropriate services to participating families.
Even Start costs vary widely across projects. As might be expected, projects that serve large numbers of families do so at a lower cost per family. In particular, projects that serve 100 or more families do so at a Federal cost of $1,659 per family, while projects that serve 30 or fewer families spend an average of $6,312 per family. Also, projects that delegate responsibility for providing core services to cooperating agencies have a lower cost ($1,878 per family) than projects that retain primary responsibility for providing core services ($5,775 per family).
In general, the effects of adult literacy education were not very strong. The program did not result in significant adult learning gains--adults in a control group gained enough on their own to weaken the already moderate effects of adult literacy instruction for the treatment group. Learning gains also tended to level off after about 50 hours of instruction. While the program did succeed in increasing the number of GEDs gained by participants, attaining a GED is not associated with greater income or employment in most studies. This lack of GED influence on employment or income held true for Even Start parents as well at least in the short-run. It is possible that adult basic skills education needs to be offered in the context of training for employment to result in direct effects on employment. It is also possible that adult basic skills education does not show rapid effects.
Nor was the study able to measure the effects of parenting education on adults. The program overall was not able to show significant gains for adults on any important parenting education measures. This was due at least in part to the lack of good measurement instruments endemic to this field. Initial responses to the intake interview were quite high probably reflecting parents' familiarity with the "right" responses to questions such as whether they read to their children. Also, parenting education is not a standardized program, so the likely variation among projects in the services offered may have acted to dilute effects as well.
To sum up, the Even Start model has positive short-term effects both on children and adults, although this occurred in projects that implemented the model intensively--ensuring that their families received many hours of early childhood education, parenting education, and adult education. The program overall did not show strong effects in its first 4 years as implemented. As States and local programs benefit from the knowledge gained during this evaluation, it is possible that there will be more local projects that can show similar effects to those which implemented intensive models. Future evaluations will also concentrate on determining whether adult literacy instruction should remain a key component of the Even Start model.
The national evaluation program is also expanding to include case studies in specific areas. These studies use data from the national evaluation to identify projects for intensive review.
Technical assistance. In addition, the Department embarked on several important technical assistance activities that responded to needs identified by the national evaluation or during program office monitoring.
[Federal, State, and Local Partnership for Educational Improvement]