A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Early Childhood Reform in Seven Communities - October 1996

III. Study Aims and Study Questions

Research Purposes, Audiences and Questions

This report is the final product of a three-and-one-half year study commissioned by the Office of Education Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education. The OERI initiated eleven similar field research projects to examine significant education reform strategies in areas such as student assessment, parent and community involvement, uses of technology, teacher professionalism, and early childhood services. Each study was designed to document and analyze significant local examples of innovative and successful implementation of reforms, towards the purpose of assisting other communities involved in tackling similar problems:

"The purpose of this procurement is to take stock of those efforts -- to trace out the lessons that others can learn from pioneers in this field -- to identify the key incentives for, and barriers to, education reform, both in schools and other sites, and in the larger policy environment. To accomplish this objective, this work must move beyond mere description of models to investigate the circumstances that encouraged and permitted model sites to implement constructive reforms, and to describe to others how they can affect their own circumstances so they, too, can improve education in their respective jurisdictions."

This study was particularly designed to provide useful information to early childhood practitioners who work directly with children and families, managers who direct early childhood agencies and programs, and policymakers who make decisions about program designs and funding strategies. Case study methodology is particularly appropriate for creating descriptive accounts of front-line practice and local management which can be helpful to practitioners in other communities. Case studies also offer the potential to illustrate how state and federal policies and mandates influence the practices and effectiveness of local programs. Accordingly, the central purposes for this examination of early childhood strategies are as follows:

1. To describe innovative, effective local strategies for serving young children and their parents and contributing to assuring that participants are prepared for success when they enter elementary school.
2. To analyze key factors in the design and implementation of these programs.
3. To describe how state and federal policies support or inhibit successful management and front-line service strategies.
4. To provide recommendations to early childhood practitioners and policymakers on how to create more high quality early childhood programs.

Case study research is appropriate to studies of an exploratory and explanatory nature. The research study sought to better understand the development, implementation, and impacts of early childhood initiatives. As an exploratory study, the key research questions in each phase of early childhood program development were:

- Design: How do successful program directors work to get early childhood programs adopted and funded? What strategies are linked to higher quality services, more comprehensive and responsive operations, and greater ability to assist and support young children and their parents?

- Implementation: What are the problems and problem-solving strategies found in each case situation? How does a program develop in practice over time?

- Impact: How does the program keep track of outcomes and what results, if any, have been accomplished?

As an explanatory study the study sought to determine the ways local, internal, and external forces shape program development. This ecological approach framed our research questions thus:

- How do community conditions (demographics, economics, community resources) encourage or hinder the development of comprehensive early childhood services?

- How does program leadership impact the development and sustainability of an early childhood initiative?

- How does the larger policy environment interact with program implementation?

Site Selection and Program Characteristics

To answer these questions, our research team completed seven case studies of exemplary local early childhood strategies. Programs were selected based on nominations from a large group of national experts and state administrators involved with child care, Head Start, school- based, and parent-centered early childhood programs. We selected seven local programs, with careful attention to assuring certain common features and maximum variation on other attributes.

Based on analysis of research literature, each initiative shared the following features, to allow for fruitful comparative analysis of practice and policy implications:

- All agencies were recognized for exemplary levels of quality and innovative approaches to serving children and families.

- All agencies serve children from low- to moderate-income families, where a variety of risk factors are present which create difficulties for children's healthy development and school readiness.

- All agencies exhibit a strong commitment to working with parents and families as key clients and partners, as well as providing high quality early childhood education experiences for children.

- Every program works with one or more state or federal agencies as a dominant source of funding and policy.

The seven programs are as follows:

- Child Development, Inc. (CDI) in Russelville, Arkansas is a Head Start grantee which provides comprehensive services in a variety of ways to families in rural communities, including home-based programs, prekindergarten and child care services, and special initiatives for teen parents, participants in Arkansas's welfare reform initiative, and families in need of literacy or employment training.

- Inn Circle, Inc. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is a Head Start-based initiative to serve homeless, single parents with young children in a residential facility -- combining child care services with education, employment, and community-building services for families.

- Sheltering Arms, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia combines family support and child care services to low income and working families, using an innovative blend of funding from the United Way, corporations, state and federal child care programs, and fees from parents.

- The Parent Services Project (PSP) in Fairfax, California is a national strategy to infuse family support and involvement principles and services into local child care and early childhood agencies.

- James E. Biggs Early Childhood Center in Covington, Kentucky is an innovative partnership between a local school district and a non-profit child care agency, working together to manage a prekindergarten, family support, and home visitation strategy.

- Jersey City, New Jersey's Early Childhood Program is a comprehensive early childhood program in an urban school district, beginning with a prekindergarten program and including a curriculum and staff development initiative in kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms.

- Family and Child Education (FACE) in New Mexico is a national initiative of the Bureau of Indian Affairs which combines three research-based strategies (Parents As Teachers, Family Literacy, and the High/Scope curriculum) to provide Native American families with home-based parent education, adult literacy services, and a prekindergarten classroom program.

As highlighted in Table 1, agencies differ in terms of the type of community served (including urban, rural, small city, and suburban populations), the sponsoring organization (Head Start grantees, public school districts, non-profit child care agencies), and the size of the initiative (ranging from multi-million dollar operations in Child Development, Inc. and Sheltering Arms, Inc. to a single local center in Covington, Kentucky). We included programs which have been started relatively recently and agencies with long histories. Finally, while the majority of the case studies describe operations in a single local community, we included two projects (the Parent Services Project and Family and Child Education) which are tackling the challenge of "going to scale" by implementing a common strategy across a wide range of different communities.

This study design and this set of program sites distinguish this report from most recent analysis of early childhood services and policy. First, the study design is unusual for its breadth of analysis of the connections among front-line practice strategies, agency management and leadership, and the influences of public funding and policy. Most research tends to concentrate either on issues of direct teaching and family service practice or on policy analysis. Second, the site selection is unusual because it provides broad coverage across the range of organizations active in providing early childhood services. It complements major lines of past research which has looked at programs within a single form of agency or strategy, such as public-school-based early childhood programs, Head Start, parent education and family support programs, or child care.

TABLE 1

CASE STUDY SITE CHARACTERISTICS

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[Summary Review of the Literature] [Case Study Summaries]