As states across the U.S. explore ways to bring more preschool options to their communities, leaders can run into hurdles when trying to answer key questions about how current early learning systems are serving children and families. In fact, a recent survey conducted by Child Trends found that states can struggle to make the best-informed decisions about communities and families because of data barriers and gaps.
To help address this, the Gates Foundation turned to the Strategic Data Project (SDP), which is an initiative of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. SDP focuses on helping the education field transform and strengthen its capacity to use data to guide decisions and make program improvements. The two-year SDP Fellowship program has trained more than 570 data strategists across more than 260 early learning programs, school districts, charter networks, state agencies, postsecondary systems, and other organizations.
SDP engaged several early learning systems and school districts to see what questions they were interested in exploring. From there, they selected 13 SDP Fellow positions. These fellows will participate in two working groups focused on analyses inspired by the STEP Forward with Data Framework, a framework written by a team at Child Trends that describes the essential questions for preschool leaders and the data needed to answer them. The Framework will serve as a unifying resource for fellows as they tackle similar analyses across geographies and contexts.
One working group will focus on questions of public pre-K supply and demand, including these essential questions:
Does Pre-K supply and enrollment procedures at the community level meet family needs?
Corresponding STEP Framework Essential Questions:
- Does existing supply meet the needs of families from focal populations?
- Do enrollment procedures help families from focal populations attend the programs they want?
- Are children from focal populations enrolled in preschools at the same proportions as in the broader community?
The other working group will focus on questions about children reaching learning milestones in preschool through 3rd grade (P-3):
Are children meeting developmental and learning milestones along the P-3 continuum?
Corresponding STEP Framework Essential Questions:
- Do programs use multiple forms of evidence to understand the developmental progress, strengths, and needs of children from focal populations, across domains of development?
- Are children from focal populations reaching developmental and learning milestones when transitioning to kindergarten?
Learn more about what these fellows are exploring and how their work can help build more equitable local and state preschool systems.
California
Two fellows at the California Department of Education will conduct data analyses for the state’s recently launched Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) Program. The fellows will connect disparate data across UPK programs, including the California State Preschool Program and Transitional Kindergarten. Data analyses will help the agency understand which children are enrolled in which UPK sites and how children are progressing as they transition to K-12.
Chicago
The Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System fellow will create an unduplicated count of children across early childhood programs to understand where to expand seats, where there are gaps, and for which program types.
The Chicago Public Schools Office of Early Education will take stock of which assessments are being used across preschool to 2nd grade (P-2) and create data tools to help school leaders better operationalize available data on child outcomes across the early years.
Denver
With UPK expansion, Denver Public Schools (DPS) wants to understand family preference for program type to inform the district’s long-term planning. The DPS fellow will analyze families' preferences to help the district make decisions around program expansion.
The Denver Preschool Program is conducting supply and demand analysis to understand why only 60% of eligible children are participating in publicly funded early childhood programs and assess program quality. The analysis will help inform outreach efforts to increase enrollment for public preschool.
Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care will explore a supply and demand analysis for their Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative, a grant program that helps connect children to high-quality preschool. They will also look at P-2 outcomes by connecting longitudinal data held by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education.
Boston Public Schools (BPS) is working to launch a new School Report Card pilot with the goal of measuring school readiness across the city in domains such as math, literacy and language, and social-emotional learning. BPS plans to use this data to inform coaching and professional development resources for teachers.
National Head Start Association
The National Head Start Association fellow will use a data lake—a central repository for Head Start program data—to create visualizations to understand recruitment, enrollment, and attendance gaps and opportunities, including where children are currently being underserved at the community level. Analyses will help Head Start grantees better serve specific populations, such as children with special needs and those experiencing homelessness.
South Carolina
As part of South Carolina’s Early Childhood Integrated Data Systems project, the South Carolina First Steps fellow will work across South Carolina agencies to establish an unduplicated count of children in the state’s mixed delivery model.
Washington
Two fellows at the Washington State Education Research and Data Center will focus on integrating data across early childhood programs, including the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECAEAP) and the newly launched Transition to Kindergarten (TK) Program, to better understand how programs are meeting the needs of specific communities and recent shifts in enrollment. The fellows will also analyze kindergarten readiness data (WaKIDS) to understand its predictive value for later life outcomes, including third-grade test scores.
Washington, D.C.
The D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education will use data from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) to understand how program quality leads to K-2 outcomes. Data will be used to inform system-wide professional development for teachers.