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[Executive Summary]
This report is the final product of the second national Even Start evaluation, representing a tremendous amount of work performed by countless individuals throughout the four years of the evaluation. By far, the most important contributors were Even Start project directors, staff, and, in many cases, local evaluators. Each year, they collected intake information on new families, maintained participation records on all participants, and entered these data into the data entry system. In addition, many state coordinators provided encouragement and assistance to their projects and the evaluation contractors in support of this effort. All of their efforts are deeply appreciated.
A special recognition is extended to the projects that participated in the Sample Study. In addition to the data that all projects collected, these projects administered assessment scales to families participating in the Sample Study and maintained detailed participation records. These data were needed to address the questions concerning program effectiveness.
Throughout this complex four-year evaluation, the U.S. Department of Education staff provided valuable guidance and support to the evaluation contractors. Special thanks are due to: the Contracting Officer?s Technical Representatives, including Robert Glenn, Tracy Rimdzius, and Barbara Vespucci of the Planning and Evaluation Service (PES); Valena Plisko, also of PES; and Donna Campbell, Laura Chow, Regina Kinnard, Patricia McKee, DonnaMarie Marlow, and Wei-min Wang of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The Expert Work Group, which represents the academic, research, and practitioner communities related to Even Start, contributed critical insights and feedback on the conceptual and methodological approaches of the second evaluation, as well as data analysis, interpretation, presentation, and future evaluation plans. The group members were: Sharon Darling, National Center for Family Literacy; Barbara Shay, New York State Education Department; Catherine Snow, Harvard University; Maris Vinovskis, University of Michigan; Mary Wagner, SRI International; Heather Weiss, Harvard Family Research Project; and Miriam Westheimer, HIPPY USA.
Two firms conducted this evaluation: Fu Associates, Ltd., the prime contractor, and Abt Associates Inc., the subcontractor. The major contributors to the Fu Associates team, headed by Fumiyo Tao, were: Christine Arriola, Rhonda Byrnes, Sherry Khan, Takeko Kumagawa, Tommy Lo, Kathy McDonough, Amy Nelson, Brian Shea, Bonnie Silsby, Denise Stakem, Amy Stock, Hope Tarr, and Marlene Walker. Key staff of the Abt Associates team, headed by Beth Gamse, were: Anne Chase, Dylan Conger, Cindy Creps, Lynne Geitz, Don Laliberty, Marjorie Levin, Marc Moss, Marla Nierenberg, Robert St.Pierre, and Janet Swartz. We also thank Judith D. Singer, whose writing and advice about multi-level modeling in general and PROC MIXED, specifically, were invaluable.
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