EEC Board Committee
Planning and Evaluation
Monday, March 22, 2010
11:00pm-1:00pm
Department of Early Education and Care
51 Sleeper St.
Boston, MA 02210
AGENDA
Members of the Committee Present
Sherri Killins, EEC Commissioner (Ex-Officio) (by phone)
JD Chesloff, Board Chairperson
Carol Craig O’Brien, Board Member
Julie Culhane, Committee Chairperson (by phone)
EEC Staff Present
Jennifer Louis
Kelly Schaffer
The meeting was called to order at: 11:05 a.m.
Welcome and Introductions
Committee members were welcomed.
Routine Business:
Minutes
Members had an opportunity to review the minutes. It should be noted that the
meeting in February was changed to March 5 in order to focus on the Commissioners
evaluation.
NIEER/UPK evaluation project
Discussion:
Background: EEC asked NIEER to lay out evaluation strategies for both the short term and
long term. Each year, there is money in the UPK line item for evaluation. These strategies
would provide a framework for how to use the UPK evaluation funds in the short term and
the long term. Previously the evaluations have not connected from year to year. The first
year the evaluation looked at how UPK grantees spent the money they received. The second
year evaluation looks at program quality. There is some pressure for the 3rd year evaluation
to look at access and instructional practice. Program quality will need to be focused on for
the QRIS rollout.
NIEER was asked to help EEC think of the next couple of year’s evaluation, specifically how
to we take the programs to the next level and expand access to high quality programs.
51 Sleeper Street, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02210
Phone: 617-988-6600 • Fax: 617-988-2451 • commissioners.office@state.ma.us
www.eec.state.ma.us
The Subcommittee discussed the issue of UPK being tied to parental income and not the
educational needs of the children.
NIEER’s report provided recommendations for studies on three areas: Access and
Enrollment, Workforce and Continuity of Care.
In the Access and Enrollment area, NIEER suggests conducting a waitlist analysis. This
analysis would provide information on who is on the waitlist and where they are now (do
they have care but didn’t receive financial assistance, or they eligible for financial
assistance?). The Program Access study will look at the larger universe of families in need of
care. This study is a scaled up version of the waitlist analysis looking at all families not just
ones on the waitlist. As part of this study, EEC would also be able to gather information on
access to high quality programs, including UPK, and be better able to estimate the demand
for early education and care programs statewide.
The second area is Workforce Analysis. This will tie into the QRIS pilot. NIEER suggested
looking at characteristics, credentials and educational attainment in the field. The
subcommittee discussed the Workforce Analysis study as it compares to other workforce
evaluations that have been ongoing.
The third area is Continuity of Care. This study looks at where children are who are staying
in care, and why others leave care (for instance, change in parent work status or income,
relocation of family, etc.). Particular attention can be given to children receiving EEC
financial assistance.
The subcommittee discussed how these studies would relate to evaluating UPK. The results
of these studies would provide EEC with a benchmark of the universe of three and four year
olds with which to compare slices of the population (such as UPK).
NIEER also suggested a kindergarten readiness assessment. This is in EEC’s legislation and
is a long term project the Department is working on.
In their report, NIEER discussed the different types of larger-scale data collection options,
ranging from the least expensive of using existing data to the most experience of
randomized study. Though most costly the randomized study is the most rigorous. It was
discussed that as planning for longer-term evaluations gets under way, more in depth
discussion can be given to large-scale data collection efforts.
A scope of services to fund a series of the evaluation strategies laid out by NIEER was sent
to EEC’s Research and Evaluation vendor list. The Department will hire a consultant to
conduct a waitlist analysis, program access analysis and a continuity of services analysis to
occur between April 1 and June 30, 2010. Longer-term evaluation strategies will be
discussed at future meetings.
Subcommittee members thought it would be helpful to have a conversation about defining
our current UPK program in a post QRIS world. The subcommittee will discuss this at the
May meeting.
Next Steps:- May
The next steps for this committee during the May meeting will be to begin the discussion of
the definition of UPK in the post QRIS period.
Early Childhood Information System
Discussion:
Sherri mentioned that the Early Learning Challenge grants have been removed from student
access and affordability bill. Should the Early Learning Challenge grant be put into the
Education Action Bill (formerly the NCLB), Massachusetts will need to look at this in a
broader sense.
University of Massachusetts Lowell will be attending the April Board meeting to give a
presentation on the Open Indicators project. The Open Indicators project is essentially a
website front for the public to view data in charts or percentages. Should EEC become a
state partner and participate, EEC would supply the Open Indicators project with both
primary and secondary data to be presented through the website. The idea is to make data
more accessible to the public.
NEXT STEPS
Look at the secondary data we have from the school readiness project. This data could be
used in the Open Indicators project.
Next meeting April 8, 2010, 9:30AM – 11:30 PM, at the Worcester EEC office
Agenda items:
o KIDS Count data presentation
o QRIS evaluation
o ARRA reporting update
The committee convened at 12:26pm