This chapter addresses the question: Is Even Start, which is designed to combat the intergenerational cycle of poverty and low literacy, serving families who are most in need of family educational services? The evaluation data have consistently shown high levels of economic and educational needs across Even Start participants throughout the program's history. Many characteristics of Even Start families have remained relatively stable, although some aspects of participant profiles have changed. The percentage of Hispanic families has increased gradually since the first evaluation. The 1994 reauthorization of Even Start extended program eligibility to teen parents who had been ineligible for services under the Adult Education Act because they were under age 16 or because they were enrolled in school. This change became effective in program year 1995-96 and explains a gradual rise in the percentage of teen parents in Even Start since that program year.
Welfare reform is another factor that may affect Even Start participant profiles. The new five-year lifetime limitation on receipt of assistance, coupled with the necessity to obtain employment to receive benefits, may increase the need among low-income families for educational and job training services aimed at achieving economic self-sufficiency. Conversely, welfare reform could potentially have the opposite effect on Even Start families; the emphasis on quick job training and employment may interfere with efforts toward longer-term educational and family literacy goals. Overall, these developments are likely to create new challenges for Even Start services.
This chapter begins by presenting the basic demographic characteristics of families including family income and parents' employment status. (Low family income and low levels of adult literacy or English language proficiency are statutory requirements for selecting the "most in need" families to participate in Even Start.) The second section of the chapter describes other family characteristics that reflect the extent of families' need for Even Start educational and support services. These characteristics include parents' and children's educational backgrounds, parents' English proficiency, and parents' primary reasons for enrolling in Even Start.
Before discussing participant characteristics, however, we note that imprecise wording of some questions in the evaluation instrument introduced some ambiguity into the analysis findings. Most notably, the terms family, household, and participating adult were not clearly distinguishable. These terms were used inconsistently in several related questions (e.g., amount and main source of income for a family; number of people who live in a household; structure of a family; and receipt of welfare by a participating adult). These questions made it difficult to assess precisely the economic status of a family unit participating in Even Start because the economic unit may include more people living in the household (e.g., parents of teen parent) and the respondent may have reported only the income of the participating family. Thus, the family income reported may underestimate the household income for some Even Start families.
We also note that participant characteristics data were collected only on participating parents and children.22 Descriptions of Even Start families' need for services are based on the characteristics of participating parents and children. Seven percent of families reported in the 1996-97 evaluation had more than one participating parent. To the extent that a participating parent may have greater needs for Even Start services than the non-participating parent in the same family (e.g., the former is a recent immigrant with limited English ability but the latter is proficient in English), the findings reported in this chapter would overestimate the extent of the families' needs. This caveat applies to the findings involving parents? educational background, English proficiency, and income-earning capabilities.
Footnotes:
22 To maximize the amount of information collected on program participants, while eontaining the data collecton burden on Even Start project staff, demographic data were collected only for parents and children enrolled in the Even Start program.
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 [Chapter 2: Pt 4 Scope of the Second National Evaluation] |
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 [Chapter 3: Pt 2 How Many Familes Were Served In Even Start?] |