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Early Childhood Reform in Seven Communities - October 1996
As we noted in the Introduction, this study design provided a unique opportunity to investigate the interaction of state and federal policy, local agency management, and front-line practice across early childhood programs based in public schools, child care agencies, and Head Start grantees. From our immersion in this multi-level, multi-sector study, we suggest three research strategies to address the needs of policymakers and practitioners:
(Some of the ideas and questions in this Chapter were stimulated by our participation in a conference convened by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the American Educational Research Association and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education on School-linked Comprehensive Services for Children and Families in October, 1994).
Given the complexity, dynamics, and significance of early childhood policy, we recommend ongoing studies of how funding, program design, and support strategies are implemented in local communities. We urge that policy studies address the full range of local providers of early childhood services and pay particular attention to the interactive effects of multiple state and federal programs and policies. We suggest two specific priority strategies.
First, given the importance of state initiatives in the early childhood sector, we need an ongoing data base on state-level early childhood policy. A variety of valuable individual studies have been completed on child care program standards (Adams, 1990), policies on training and certification for staff members, (Morgan, et.al.,1993), early childhood programs in public schools (Mitchell, Seligson & Marx, 1989), and state prekindergarten programs (Adams & Sandfort, 1994). However, this strategy of commissioning individual studies has a number of weaknesses:
Building on the methodologies of these individual studies, we recommend creating a data base which would include elements of funding, program designs, enrollment, approaches to eligibility and targeting, regulations on quality, policies on certification of staff members, and strategies to coordinate leadership and management. Within each element, data would be included across child care, Head Start, prekindergarten, parent education, family literacy and any other key sector of state policy leadership. The system would be designed to be updated annually and form the basis for ongoing reports to the nation. There would also be open access to data from this system for analysis from the perspectives of individual states, regions, and various interest and advocacy groups.
Second, we recommend studies on the effects of federal program reforms in early childhood, human services and public welfare. As this report is being prepared, Congress enacting welfare reform, significant budget reductions in education and human service programs, substantial consolidation and deregulation of categorical child care and early childhood programs, and devolution of decisionmaking to the state level. If all or any of these changes are enacted, studies should track the effects of these policy changes in (a) state administration, (b) local agency services and practices, (c) levels and targeting of enrollment, and (d) effectiveness of programs on children and families.
Any one of these changes could have substantial effects on the supply, demand, and management environment of early childhood agencies. For example, welfare reform provisions to require mothers of young children to work will increase the demand for child care. Budget reductions will limit the capacity of local agencies to serve needy families and create barriers to efforts to enhance program quality. Program consolidation could reduce local administrative costs but could increase uncertainty and instability for local agencies by disrupting present patterns of funding. Local agencies could also face major adjustments due to consolidation of programs in other areas of service. For example, the Child and Adult Care Food Program subsidizes the costs of feeding children in child care and Head Start centers. If this program is consolidated into a block grant with other nutrition programs, early childhood agencies could lose access to this significant source of support for program services.
In addition, there will also be substantial interactive effects if these proposals are enacted simultaneously or in partial forms. For example, program consolidation and enhancing the autonomy of state government in program direction could lead to more coherent and consistent governance and management of early childhood services. However, program consolidation could occur in a fashion which combines a number of current child care funding streams, but continues separate funding and management of Head Start, Chapter 1 and early childhood special education programs. What will be the costs and outcomes of implementing such substantial-yet-partial approaches to simplifying program structures?
For all these reasons, an important research priority is documenting the effects of this mix of policy changes as they are enacted and implemented at the federal, state, and local level. Implementation studies should examine effects on dimensions of cited above at each level in the policy and delivery system, across program lines, and with careful attention to the multiple perspectives of children, parents, staff members, program managers, collaborating family service agencies, state administrators, legislators, and leadership at the federal level.
A second form of research we endorse is descriptive, analytic accounts of how local managers and staff members are addressing difficult, significant problems of practice. Early childhood professionals need the opportunity to learn more systematically about how peers are addressing challenging issues in classrooms, in working with families, and in managing agencies. While evaluation of the outcomes of strategies would be ideal, practitioners would appreciate descriptive information about the content, costs, implementation requirements, feasibility, and reactions of participants. Compared to other sectors of education and human services, early childhood professionals have fewer sources for learning about experiences and strategies of their counterparts in other communities, or in other forms of early childhood agencies.
Here are examples of the types of challenges and questions which could be addressed through this form of research:
A third research strategy we recommend is providing resources and technical assistance to enable local programs to study the effectiveness of their work. As we noted in our Chapter on Assessment of Outcomes, only a minority of these agencies are participating in formal evaluations. Even fewer have had the opportunity to design and initiate studies of the outcomes and effectiveness of their program services. Rather, most evaluation activity on early childhood services is designed at the state and federal level. We suggest that a program of grants to local agencies or agency-evaluator teams is a strategy which should be considered, to address questions such as the following:
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