Community Input Discussions:

1

Community Input Discussions Measuring the
Progress of Young Children in Massachusetts
August 2009
2
Statement of Intent

• Massachusetts is in the early stages of
  developing a statewide system to measure
  developmental progress of its young children
• EEC is engaging parents, providers, program
  administrators, teachers, higher education
  institutions, and policy makers to build a
  responsive approach
• This initiative is separate from (and would not
  replace) developmental information that programs
  gather about children to use for curriculum
  planning and to individualize instruction

3
Questions for Stakeholder Input

• What are your hopes for measuring the
  developmental progress of young children in
  state?
• How do you hope information will be used?
• What are the most important things to measure
  about school readiness?
• What are some of the challenges you foresee in
  moving forward with this effort?

4
Measuring School Readiness Across the Country

• Massachusetts is joining rapidly growing trend to
  understand school readiness
• 29 states currently collect statewide data on
  childrens progress
• These efforts are often directly connected to
  state-funded preschool efforts

5
Why Are Statewide Data Needed?

• To inform policy makers about the benefits of and
  impact of investments in early childhood
  education and care in Massachusetts
• To better understand school readiness gaps(s) for
  subgroups of children
• To inform statewide policy development
• Data will not be used for high stakes testing
  of young children or providers

6
Statewide Measures of School Readiness vs. Child
Assessments and Screenings

• Currently, many providers are already using a
  developmental assessment or screening tool to
  inform practice and individualize instruction
• Providers are currently using a variety of
  assessment measures
• UPK grantees are required to use one of four
  assessment systems
• Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum
• Ages Stages
• High Scope Child Observation Record (COR)
• Work Sampling System
• Statewide measurement of school readiness is not
  intended to be used to replace program-level
  assessment practices

7
Statewide Measures of School Readiness vs. Child
Assessments and Screenings

• Different purposes
• Statewide system information about the success
  of all children in Massachusetts
• Program-level assessments information for
  parents and caregivers about individual children
• Different level of information about child
• Statewide system measure a small number of
  indicators of school readiness
• Program-level assessments comprehensive look at
  child progress across all developmental domains

8
Statewide Measures of School Readiness vs. Child
Assessments and Screenings

• Different usefulness to providers
• Statewide system for broader policy purposes
• Program-level assessments to help provider
  support each childs growth and development
• Other differences
• Statewide system children will be anonymous when
  data are reported

9
Design Options for Statewide Measure Key Issues
to Consider

• WHAT to measure about child development
• WHO to measure
• WHEN to measure
• HOW will measures/information on children be
  collected
• WHAT ELSE to measure about home environments,
  program characteristics, and community context

10
Design Options for Statewide Measure Key Issues
to Consider

• WHAT how broadly should we measure childrens
  development which domains are most important?
• WHO all children and programs, or just a sample?
• WHEN longitudinal data in preschool only (ages 3
  and 4) or linking with school data (K and/or
  grade 1)?
• HOW providers trained to administer measures,
  outside evaluators, and/or other informants?

11
Other State Approaches

• All states look at development either at one
  point in time or over time, usually using
  different samples of children at each age
• All states interested in measuring school
  readiness skills, although the skills that they
  measure vary
• Types of measures used vary (standardized
  assessment vs. developmental observations, number
  of development areas measured)
• Where system is ongoing, states involve providers
  in data collection

12
Other States Approaches Using Providers as Data
Collectors

• MD Ongoing assessment of all children at school
  entry by kindergarten teachers, using Work
  Sampling System
• PA Ongoing measures of all children three time
  per year during preschool and kindergarten by
  providers, using Work Sampling System
• NC Snapshot of school readiness information
  using variety of measures from a sample of
  principals, kindergarten teachers, parents, and
  children just entering kindergarten, coordinated
  by research firm

13
Key Issues Raised To Date (based on six
stakeholder meetings)

• Engage parent and provider support for initiative
  to ensure maximum participation
• Make sure purpose of initiative is clear
• Ensure information collected about children does
  not reflect negatively on families
• Consider how to support providers and minimize
  burden if they will be on the front lines of the
  measurement effort
• Consider how to provide context for data on
  development of vulnerable subgroups of children
• Consider linking child assessment data to program
  quality data to better understand linkages
  between quality and child outcomes

14
Key Decisions Moving Forward WHAT to measure?

• Narrow vs. broad measurement
• Tension between desire to measure whole child
  and what is feasible to collect
•  Which skills/outcomes to measure
• Focus on outcomes that research tells us are
  related to success in school such as
• Academic skills in reading, writing, and/or math
• Social skills
• Cognitive and behavioral self-regulation

15
Key Decisions Moving Forward WHO to measure?

• Could measure as broad a population as possible
  or target more narrowly
• Might oversample particular subgroups of interest
• Effort will likely be limited to preschool
  children in licensed and license-exempt settings
• Probably not feasible to access children who are
  in informal and/or unlicensed care settings or
  who are not in out-of-home care at all
•  

16
Key Decisions Moving Forward HOW to measure?

• Providers as assessors
• Advantages cost, may help with getting parent
  permission, providers learn about their
  childrens skills
• Disadvantages concerns about bias if providers
  assess their own children, need to train large
  number of providers, difficult for providers to
  find time to conduct quiet standardized
  assessment
•  Outside assessors
• Advantages can be trained to reliability, no
  public concerns about partiality, possibility of
  building on early childhood education
  infrastructure in state to develop group of
  assessors
• Disadvantages cost of conducting assessments,
  cost of training
• Parents as assessors
• Advantages builds parent buy-in, not expensive
• Disadvantages public perception of bias, some
  concepts might be hard to explain to parents, may
  be difficult to get parents to return this
  information

17
Key Decisions Moving Forward Consider
Integration/Overlap with Other Assessment Efforts

• UPK grantees using one of four specified child
  assessment tools
• Many other programs are using either one of these
  four tools or another measure
• School district programs using Battelle in spring
  of 3-year-old year with children who will be
  evaluated for special needs
• Other efforts?

18
Key Decision Points Moving Forward WHEN to
measure?

• Options for data collection schedule before
  school entry
• Measure children once, at the end of preschool,
  to describe school readiness of preschoolers
• Measure children twice, at the beginning and end
  of preschool, to describe school readiness but
  also to see whether children who start out below
  average are closing the gap over time
• Measure children three times, once during the
  3-year-old year and fall and spring of the
  4-year-old year. This design provides more
  information on progress over time
•  
• Looking at same group of children over time vs.
  different groups of children each time 
• Although following the same children would allow
  us to look at individual growth over time, this
  is a very expensive undertaking

19
Questions for Stakeholder Input

• What are your hopes for measuring the
  developmental progress of young children in
  state?
• How do you hope information will be used?
• What are the most important things to measure
  about school readiness?
• What are some of the challenges you foresee in
  moving forward with this effort?