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Policy Influences in Local Agencies ] Early Childhood Reform in Seven Communities - October 1996
These seven managers work in different types of organizations in terms of history, size, complexity, and structure. Their agencies range from the century-plus heritage of Sheltering Arms to initiatives such as FACE and Covington, Kentucky's center, which have been in business for only a few years. Some projects are sophisticated multi-million dollar enterprises, while others operate smaller, less complex operations. Four managers are executives in independent, non-profit organizations, two are middle-level managers within school systems, and one is a teacher-director who works with children as well as handling administrative duties. However, regardless of their job setting, early childhood administrators balance energy and attention between two central functions:
The Context of Program Management: Competing Audiences & Design Dilemmas
Our present public system for funding early childhood programs involves a variety of sponsoring agencies; a varied set of categorical, discretionary funding streams; and a lack of entitlement by families or institutions. Analysts count as many as ninety different federal funding streams, in agencies as disparate as the IRS, the Departments of Education, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services. (Government Accounting Office, 1989) The programs are diverse as to the form of service they provide, the target group of children and families, and the mechanisms which are used to allocate and disburse resources. Two other central features of early childhood funding are that programs serve only a portion of the total eligible families and children which fall within their definition of need, and fiscal commitments are discretionary. Thus, local agencies continue only if they are successful in competitive public funding. By contrast, our nation's K-12 education system presumes that every child is entitled to a free education, regardless of where they live or their family's income, and school districts enjoy permanent legal status and dedicated sources of public revenue.
Along with a competitive, complex funding environment, managers face dilemmas in designing program services and staffing systems. As detailed in research findings cited in Chapter II, the core function of nurturing and educating young children requires intensive, responsive practice trained, caring adults. Thus, as described by Gwen Morgan, early childhood policy (and local management) involves a "trilemma" of costs, access, and quality. The trilemma construct posits conflicts among the important goals of keeping costs affordable to parents and government, expanding access to programs, and providing quality which will maximize the healthy development and school readiness of all children. Underlying the trilemma is research which demonstrates that optimizing quality involves a well-trained staff, working within a certain range of ratios of staff:clients. Further, we know that obtaining and retaining a well- trained staff requires competitive salaries. These facts create a set of difficult judgments for local managers as they plan budgets and allocate resources.
We now turn to an analysis of management strategies in the realms of fundraising and fiscal management, and leadership in program quality. We begin by describing three strategies employed by local program leaders in raising and managing funds:
Next we will outline three management strategies related to issues of program quality:
Program Management Strategies
1. Managers seek support for programs services from a wide variety of state and federal programs.
Local managers are pressed to work on fundraising for a variety of reasons. While many of these initiatives have expanded substantially in recent years, most still have long waiting lists of families who would like to enroll their children, or requests from communities to create new centers. Another cause for fundraising is the desire to serve different types of community needs or new client groups, such as teen parents or families with infants and toddlers. Finally, managers need to cover increasing costs in the face of level funding from core sources and to anticipate contingencies such as reductions or instability in their present mix of supporters. For example, Child Development Inc. has quadrupled its budget over the last six years, moving from nearly total reliance on federal Head Start funds to a wider range of public, private, and parental fee-based services. Effects of this expansion include:
Child Development Inc. has learned how to sustain a service strategy over time by using different sources of funding. They have provided home-based programs since the mid-1970s with a sequence of support including federal Head Start funds, Arkansas-based foundations, the Department of Labor's Job Training Partnership Act, and, most recently, the state's Act for Better Child Care Program. Similarly, the Sheltering Arms agency has been able to access a new state department of education preschool program to fund classrooms for 4-year-olds which in prior years absorbed United Way and other core agency funds. As the state department of education funds have come into the agency, resources previously directed towards this age group have been shifted towards younger children.
Directors confront a fiscal environment with elements of stability and uncertainty. When new state or federal programs are announced (such as recent initiatives in Kentucky and Arkansas or Project FACE in the Bureau of Indian Affairs), managers know that their proposals will be competing with many other contenders. However, once an agency establishes a relationship with a state or federal program, chances are that funding will be continued in the future, assuming that performance is satisfactory. For example, Head Start continuation funds are guaranteed for incumbent grantees as long as they pass muster in their fiscal audits and compliance with performance standards as assessed by external monitoring teams. However, managers also need to be alert to signs of restructuring or new priorities within existing funding streams. As one manager comments, the episodic nature of competition leads to a stance of eternal "vigilance":
Administrators employ a variety of strategies in raising money. They seek involvement in state, regional, and national conferences, advisory groups, and proposal review assignments to learn about potential new sources of revenue and the interests of decisionmakers. They create collaborative relationships, learn to accept a pattern of hits and misses in submitting proposals, and take the view that persistence will eventually be rewarded:
The combination of a varied set of funding sources and entrepreneurial local managers leads to a developmental pattern as agencies mature, beginning with initiation through a single state or federal program, and expanding to offer a more diverse array of services by gaining access to a wider range of public and private funding sources. Examples of the initial pattern of funding include FACE initiatives, depending on Bureau of Indian Affairs support, and Covington, which relies primarily on state department of education dollars. More mature agencies include Child Development, Inc. with 15 different funding sources; Inn Circle, with some 20 federal, state and local "investors", and Sheltering Arms, with dozens of private and public contributors. Elaine Draeger, Executive Director at Sheltering Arms explains an added benefit of diversified funding, which is greater local autonomy in designing program services and definitions of program quality:
Programs in this study seek to go "beyond the usual suspects" in seeking early childhood funding. Agencies are seeking support from economic development agencies, job training and vocational education programs, and welfare reform initiatives. For example, the Inn Circle enterprise illustrates the potential for expanding early childhood services within a larger community development/family service strategy. The largest funding source for Inn Circle is HUD's Supplemental Assistance to Aid the Homeless fund. Child care for the preschool population is funded by a combination of Head Start, state at-risk child care funds, state department of education preschool program, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant program. Head Start funds two family living counselors for the overall adult development strategy; a Department of Human Service Family Protection Fund supports additional home visiting staff for Head Start.
By selecting agencies known for their quality and innovativeness, this study uncovered many success stories in fundraising. However, even these experienced, relentless marketing experts encounter difficulties. For example, a coalition of foundations in Northern California gave birth to the Parent Services Project (PSP) strategy and continued their support over a substantial time span to refine program strategies, conduct an impact evaluation, and create materials and strategies to disseminate the model in other settings. PSP Director Ethel Seiderman and colleagues led three successful campaigns to pass legislation for state funding, but the bills were vetoed by three different governors. PSP has experienced good success in funding from national foundations to replicate their model in other states and communities. However, some of the original program sites have struggled in efforts to sustain a full range of PSP family support services.
The competitive funding market can also have a detrimental effect on relationships among different community agencies serving young children. The Covington program and several FACE sites have experienced some tensions in relationships with Head Start, due to competition for similar target groups of families.
2. Managers mobilize local voluntary and private sector funds to complement state and federal program support and to enhance community ownership of early childhood services.
All agencies in this study involve parents in fund-raising to help supplement budgets, to give parents the opportunity to contribute to the agency, and to develop organizational and social skills which strengthen parents as potential employees and community members. Child Development, Inc. keeps accounts on roughly $1 million in various forms of in-kind contributions and volunteer services each year. Covington draws the majority of its nonworking parents into its substantial training program in how to volunteer in an early childhood classroom, and receives over 3000 days of volunteer service annually. Inn Circle operates its infant-toddler child care center as a parent cooperative, since public funds are insufficient to provide quality staffing for the range of hours of operation which parents require.
Agencies also draw on local community resources to complement state and federal program resources. For example, Inn Circle has also placed a premium on soliciting resources and contributions from local groups, to give residents a stake in the initiative and exposure to the problems of homelessness. Local companies and voluntary organizations were invited to donate $2000 in cash or 1000 hours in volunteer time to cover renovation costs of a single apartment unit. Sponsor organizations are recognized by plaques on the doors of each apartment.
The Jersey City early childhood initiative was begun with state department of education resources, but has expanded primarily through increased allocations of local school funds for staffing and facilities. The first year (1989-90) enrollment of 150 children was funded by New Jersey's Urban Preschool Pilot Program, but by 1992 local district funds were supporting 310 slots while the state dollars covered only 99 children. Program Coordinator Pat Noonan helped build the case for local funding by holding a highly publicized annual lottery for parents seeking to enroll their children in her program. Another important strategic decision was to allow all children in the community to be eligible to participate in locally-funded classrooms. The lottery began in 1990, when 350 families applied to enroll in four classrooms funded by the local school district. In recent years, more than 700 parents have applied to participate in the district program, which offers approximately 300 slots. This method assures parents that decisions are made on an equitable basis, but it also dramatizes the demand for early care and education to community and school leadership. The Jersey City school district has also made major investments in facilities, including $300,000 to renovate two apartments in a public housing project to use as classrooms. Similarly, the Covington Public Schools spent $1.8 million to purchase and renovate a facility for its early childhood program and the school system provides in-kind fiscal management, transportation, and maintenance services to the program.
The Sheltering Arms agency illustrates the potential of a sophisticated strategy to draw on corporate and private sector resources. As a founding member of the United Way, the agency has a history of connections with corporate leaders and local foundations. They employ a former board member as a consultant to seek out resources from local foundations and corporations, a task which involves some 64 different businesses, 26 local foundations and more than $350,000 in funds in 1993. Sheltering Arms uses its United Way funding to support its central administrative operation and for a scholarship fund which bridges the gap between the rates of reimbursement from public vouchers and parental fees and the costs of Sheltering Arms services. Scholarships are awarded to all but 80 of the agency's 1300 families, ranging from a $10 per week subsidy for families earning above $50,000 per year and upwards to $75 per week for families with incomes below $11,000 annually, against average tuition rates of $100 per week. Sheltering Arms helped to initiate a particularly innovative public-private partnership among area corporations, the United Way and the state's welfare reform initiative, Positive Employment and Community Help (PEACH). Corporate funds were solicited to increase the state government's ability to draw on matching funds for child care from the federal government. $150,000 from the private sector was donated through the United Way to county human service offices, allowing an increase of roughly $400,000 in child care services following the federal matching contribution. Sheltering Arms served an additional 53 children through this arrangement and also trained 12 PEACH participants for employment in child care.
Several managers in these programs spend considerable time working to raise funds to purchase or construct facilities, concentrating on HUD and economic development funding sources as well as local corporations. The agency gains more attractive and appropriate space and reduces costs for renting or leasing space from other owners (e.g. Sheltering Arms spent $250,000 to rent facilities in 1993).
Private sector resources offer an income stream to complement parental fees and public funding and create important community connections with early childhood services. On the other hand, the success of individual agencies has not led to community-wide improvements in the quality and availability of early childhood services. For example, while the United Way of metropolitan Atlanta funds a variety of child care agencies, they cannot afford to subsidize every early childhood program to the extent that they support Sheltering Arms.
3. The diversity of revenue sources used by early childhood agencies demands sophisticated management skills by program directors.
Early childhood managers contend with a "hassle factor" of administrative complexity and a "hustle factor" of competition in dealing with the current constellation of early childhood funding streams. Diversification of funding sources creates administrative complexity as an agency creates commitment to multiple sources, each with different timelines, reporting and refunding requirements, definitions of eligibility, and standards for allowable and quality services. Administrators need to juggle the requirements of different external funders, and work to prevent he possibility of balkanizing the overall agency mission and fragmenting services.
When early childhood agencies capture resources from parent fees, a voucher system managed by their local department of welfare, Head Start funding from a federal regional office, contributions from local corporations, and United Way funds, managers must learn the intricacies of very different systems of funding, as well as how to combine resources in supporting common program services. These challenges begin with recruitment of families, determining eligibility for the funding source which is most relevant to family needs and most advantageous to the program:
Since agencies combine children from different programs in the same classrooms, managers also need to calculate the overall mix of funding sources across a center:
Fee-based revenue sources, such as child care vouchers and parental fee income require careful monitoring by program managers:
Administering multiple categorical programs also creates complications in the areas of supervising staff and services:
Different programs also have different standards for quality services in areas such as staff credentials and staffing patterns. For example, Head Start's guidelines for home-based early childhood services call for a staff:family ratio of 1:10; the Even Start program allows ratios of 1:20; and Arkansas's state early childhood initiative uses a standard of 1:15.
Finally, directors struggle to maintain an overarching sense of mission among staff funded from a variety of sources:
4. Program managers set the stage for program quality by crafting staffing patterns and compensation systems for their agencies.
The most crucial choices of local managers involve setting up staffing and compensation systems. These choices are shaped by external mandates in staff:child ratios, credentials, and service components, and indirectly by rates of funding. However, local administrators have considerable discretion in how they meet standards for the quality, frequency and intensity of services.
Projects also vary in the caseloads they set for family support staff and their approach to the dimension of intensity of services, e.g. policies on the frequency of home visits.
Agencies also take different approaches in levels of compensation and credentials for staff members. For example, Covington, Kentucky school district's partnership with Children, Inc., calls for the child care agency to hire, supervise, and pay the classroom staff, using a compensation system which is less costly than the salaries and fringe benefits paid by the school district. Teachers under the Children, Inc. subcontract earn $18,250 per year (rates similar to those paid to staff under Children, Inc.'s other child care programs). In contrast, a special education teacher is carried at a salary level of $24,752 on the Board of Education's portion of the budget. This arrangement has allowed Covington to devote more resources to parent training and activities -- a choice which they believe has increased the effectiveness of their center. By contrast, in Jersey City, the school district compensates preschool teachers on the same salary schedule as regular elementary school staff members.
Another factor in the design of compensation systems is the market of opportunities for staff offered in other early childhood agencies, as noted by a local child care director:
Another major challenge for managers administering multiple programs is how to resolve disparities in rates of reimbursement as they affect staff compensation. For example, for Child Development, Inc., their per child revenue from child care vouchers is substantially less generous than Head Start funding rates. In response, they have created an eight-tiered system of teaching staff positions, with wages ranging from $4.30 to $11.20 per hour, with categories at the lower levels supported by child care voucher revenue (capped at roughly $6.50/hour), and the higher paid positions via Head Start. New staff members tend to enter employment at the lower levels of qualifications and move up the ladders over time. This strategy allows teachers to continue working in one agency and allows CDI to retain experienced staff. However it has the detrimental effect of creating higher rates of staff turnover in infant-toddler classrooms funded from child care voucher revenue.
5. Administrators place a priority on professional development and supervision as central strategies in building quality front-line services.
The skills and dedication of staff members are the lifeblood of early childhood services. For example, the FACE program in Torreon, New Mexico serves many teenage mothers with a staff of home visitors who are young mothers from the community. They serve as credible role models when they encourage parents to pursue an education. They go the extra mile in recruiting families who lack telephones and they brave difficult road conditions to reach homes every week:
This level of commitment can't be defined by a job description or inculcated in a training package. However, agency systems for hiring, training, supervising, and managing staff are a key lever in influencing program quality.
Each early childhood program provides substantial staff development because many staff members enter the field without extensive college training or certification. The prevalence of on-the-job training and a career ladder approach to staffing distinguishes most early childhood programs from the public schools:
Even those agencies that rely on certified teachers include extensive professional development, as can be seen in the example of Jersey City Public Schools. New Jersey's present teacher credentialing system includes a birth-grade 8 certificate, which has led to job candidates with little experience in working with children below the age of 5. Accordingly, staff in the Jersey City program participate in at least ten days of training per year, including a week-long summer institute.
Agency managers attempt to optimize their use of training resources from across different p
Early childhood programs also support staff and strengthen program quality through oversight and support from peers and supervisors. Agencies also use their experienced teachers as mentors for newer staff. Evaluations are carried out by local center directors, based on an observational system which teachers also use to rate themselves and their peers. Smaller programs such as FACE have the advantage of working with a small staff team in small communities. Weekly staff meetings of a half-dozen people allow a high level of exchange of information about children and parents and opportunities to make decisions collaboratively. Larger agencies have a more complex challenge to provide oversight and consistency in a large number of geographically dispersed centers. For example, Sheltering Arms has a small central office team of eight people to oversee its network of 11 local centers, with a total of more than 200 staff members:
Child Development, Inc. uses a similar approach and also supports consistency in program quality through a voluminous procedures manual, containing forms and guidelines for functions, ranging from recruitment to behavior management to food services. They balance the values of consistency and flexibility through emphasizing the role of local site managers:
The central staff includes specialists in component areas such as health, mental health, education, special education and family support. This team works to oversee and support the local site managers:
Covington operates with an innovative dual management team and deals with a staff which has increased from 23 to 50 members in the first year. A two-day planning retreat is held annually to involve all the staff in creating a framework of program needs, priorities and a calendar of major events. The program holds weekly staff meetings to provide a mixture of information, inspiration and group decisionmaking. In addition, family advocates and teachers meet weekly for lunch to discuss observations and information about individual children and their parents. Covington also involves staff members in planning and decisionmaking. For example, when the Superintendent wanted to pilot a new computer and software system, he met with the staff to ask their views.
6. Early childhood administrators are leaders in promoting quality services beyond the boundaries of their own agencies.
As busy and difficult as their jobs are, many of the program directors included in this study contribute to improving early childhood practice in wider realms. Sheltering Arms in Atlanta has created the IN TRAINING subsidiary to disseminate curriculum materials and provide training and technical assistance to staff from 400 early childhood programs in Georgia and neighboring states. The Parent Services Project has developed training materials and a dissemination strategy to support spread of the PSP program in other communities and settings. Foundation funding has led to implementation of PSP strategies in family child care, Head Start, public school and teenage parent programs in five states.
Local managers also serve their profession and spread their ideas and influence through a variety of personal contributions. They serve as officers and board members in state, regional and national organizations; they deliver conference presentations, serve on monitoring teams, review proposals; and participate in research and evaluation projects. Chris Carman and colleagues at Inn Circle have written several articles and position papers to share principles and strategies with colleagues; Colleen Alivado and several staff members have been tapped as part of a cadre of peer trainers to work with newly-funded FACE projects; Elaine Draeger contributes to United Way strategies and standards which influence other child care agencies in the Atlanta area. For example, all early childhood agencies funded by the area United Way were charged with developing a collective approach to addressing program assessment:
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