Building a B-9 Early Childhood
Outcomes & Tracking System
Massachusetts State Board of Early Education and Care
November 10, 2009
Janice M. Gruendel, Ph.D., M.Ed.
Consultant
Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care
1
Early Education and Care Legislative Language
The department shall establish a comprehensive system for measuring the performance
and effectiveness of programs providing early education and care and services. This
system shall include, but not be limited to, outcomes of the kindergarten readiness
assessment system and additional educationally sound, evaluative tools or
developmental screenings that are adopted by the department to assess developmental
status, age-appropriate progress and school readiness of each child; outcomes of
evidence-based intervention and prevention practices to reduce expulsion rates; and
evaluations of overall program performance and compliance with applicable laws,
standards and requirements.
(b) The department, with the approval of the board, shall adopt, and from time to time
may revise, the rigorous, developmentally appropriate, and educationally sound
kindergarten readiness assessment system required by this chapter, including additional
tools that the department considers necessary in order to assess age-appropriate
progress and school readiness of preschool-aged children. This system shall recognize
the unique challenges of assessing preschool-aged children, and shall utilize tools that
are reliable, valid and culturally and linguistically appropriate.
2
The MA Cabinet’s Vision for the Role of Data in a
“Readiness” System

Information on a child should be tracked, integrated and shared
from birth and continue through the child’s success in college or
entry to the workforce

Information sharing should occur for all children, not only children
who are identified as at-risk at any particular point in time

Information sharing should be respectful of a child and family’s
privacy while providing key information that education, social
services and other providers can use to improve children’s
outcomes

Data should be used to create meaningful, coordinated
prevention and intervention strategies and perform these early on
and in a coordinated manner
3
Of course, having successful college and workforce
outcomes does not begin with young adults…
4
It begins here, with babies and young children…
5
The “readiness” system that tracks risks
and then intervenes – in a timely manner –
to improve child, youth and family outcomes
must begin as early in the lives of children
as possible
College
& Career
Pass
HS Mastery
Pass
Test(s)
Mastery
Tests
Graduate
HS
Ready
for K
Ready
for PreK
Born
Learning
Prenatal to Three
Preschool
K
3rd- 8th
Grade
High
School
Adult6
Disparities in Early Vocabulary Growth
are Evident Early in Children’s Lives
Cumulative Vocabulary (Words)
1200
College Educated
Parents
600
Working Class
Parents
Welfare
Parents
200
16 mos.
24 mos.
36 mos.
Child’s Age (Months)
Source: Hart & Risley (1995)
The Gnarly Cycle of Un-Readiness
2. When preschoolers don’t have
quality early learning experiences,
they enter kindergarten behind.
1. When infants and
toddlers don’t have
quality interactions
with caring adults and
access to health care,
they enter preschool
behind.
3. When children enter school behind,
they are much more likely to be held
back, need special education, fail MA’s
Mastery Tests, drop out of high school
and become engaged with the welfare
and corrections systems. And, then they
have children…
8
There are some key policy questions we will need to answer
Policy Questions re B-5
Policy Questions at School Entry
1. How many very young children
do we have each year with
multiple risks? Who are they?
1. How many young children enter
K with very low readiness levels
at entry to K?
2. How can we target an
appropriate level of early
intervention services to them
and their families?
2. Were they the same “at risk
birth cohort” five years earlier?
3. Will they be the same students
who can’t read in 3rd grade?
3. What worked?
4. Have quality improvements
improved outcomes?
Policy Questions at Third Grade
1. How many 3rd graders have are not successful in the
MCAT ?
2. Could we have identified this problem earlier and
prevented it?
3. Will these students be “achievement gap” kids at 6th?
9
To answer these questions, we will need data about children,
programs and the system that serves them
Population Indicators (e.g.)
#1: Birth data at risk children
(State agencies within MA Health
& Human Services)
System Performance Measures (e.g.)
#2: Well-child visits for low
income children B-5 (MA health
& Human Services & DEEC)
#2. Cross agency agreements for
data sharing and case coordination
(State & local agencies)
#3: Entry to K Readiness
(DEEC, ESE)
#3: Funding Allocated (e.g., for
program quality improvement (State
& local agencies)
#4. 3rd Grade Reading Mastery
(ESE)
#1: Unique child, workforce and
program IDs assigned:
(DEEC)
Agency and Program Performance
Measures –such as who is served and how -drawn from the state agencies and the
programs that they operate, regulate or fund
10
ESE has been building a K-12 data system that must now
become a P-20 data system -- SLDS
And, the proposed EEC Unified Data System must now
stretch to become an early childhood information
system and link up with the ESE SLDS.
College
& Career
Graduate
HS
Pass
Mastery
Tests
Early Childhood Information System
Ready
for K
Ready
for PreK
Born
Learning
Prenatal to Three
P-20 Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems
Preschool
K
3rd- 8th
Grade
High
School
Adult11
An Early Childhood Information System (ECIS)…
…collects high-quality early childhood data on inputs and
specific outcomes that can be analyzed and used to
make decisions (within and beyond 0-5 system). **
**Developed by the Early Childhood Data Consortium
 National Governors Association
 National Conference of State Legislatures
 Data Quality Campaign
 Council of Chief State School Officers
 National Center on Children in Poverty
 PreK NOW/Pew
 Center on the Child Care Workforce
12
…An ECIS has the following characteristics…
1.
Ability to track children across ages and over time, encompassing
data on home and community environments
2.
Includes children’s demographic data (such as birth date, gender,
race, ethnicity, language) and includes special populations (e.g., ELL,
special needs) and children not in service systems
3.
Encompasses child outputs in at least four developmental domains
and data on children can be linked across sectors (e.g., ECE, health)
4.
Includes program and fiscal data (e.g., teacher/workforce
characteristics, program quality, and service costs)
5.
Allows for analysis by geography
13
…and the following core components
STATE Data and Use
LOCAL, REGIONAL Data and Use
Unique Child
Identifiers
Unique Teacher/staff
Identifiers
SASIDs assigned
as early in the life of a child
as possible
SSN deeply
encrypted and in
ESE system plus eventual
DEEC registry
Unique
Program
Identifiers
MA status unknown
14
Federal Requirements for a SLDS
Twelve elements are required, including the following PK-20
 A unique student identifier
 Student-level enrollment, demographic and program participation
information
 Student-level information about the points at which students exit,
transfer in, transfer out, drop out or complete P-16 education
 Capacity to communicate with higher education systems
 A data audit system to assess data quality, validity and reliability
 Yearly test records of individual students
 Information about students not tested
 A teacher identifier system that can match teachers to students
For nearly all of these, there is an as-yet undefined or
undeveloped early childhood data analog. This is one
good place to start!!!!!
15
ARRA Race to the Top SLDS (P-20) Requirements
1.
There must be a P-20 statewide longitudinal data system
2.
There must be a plan to ensure that SLDS data are accessible to
and used to inform and engage key stakeholder, including parents,
students, LEA personnel, community members…
3.
SLDS data along with instructional data is available and accessible
to researchers so that they can evaluate the effectiveness of
instructional materials, strategies, and approaches for different
types of students (e.g., students with disabilities, ELL, students
whose achievement is well below or above grade level)
16
So, what can Massachusetts
data now available
tell us about the state’s
young children???
17
MA Data on the Characteristics of the
State’s Young Children
Massachusetts Population (2008)
 6,498,000 Total

457,131 under age six years

231,083 under age three years
2007
Births
~ 77,800
Children Birth to Six Years (2008)










Race/ethnicity: 73% white; 12% latino; 14% other
Low Income: 28%
Federal Poverty Level: 17%
Mother w/less than HS degree:
16%
Between 8% and 30%
Enrolled in Food Stamps Program: 19%
of MA babies may be at risk
Risk of Developmental/Behavioral Problems: 22%
of school un-readiness.
Enrolled in B-3 early intervention: 9% (2005)
How many individual children
Enrolled in preschool special ed: 15% (2006)
Low birth weight babies: 7.9% (2007)
experience multiple risks?
Births to unmarried mothers:
33% (2007)
With no unique ID,
we won’t know.
18
MA Data on Children’s Readiness for Kindergarten
Attendance in High Quality EEC predicts School Readiness
 Total HS Slots, 3 and 4 year olds: 12,883 (2008 PIR)
 Total UPK Slots:
5,700 (EEC March 2009)
 Total UPK and HS Enrollment:
19,257 (NIEER 2008)
 EEC Subsidized Preschool Slots: 18,592 (EEC June 2009)


3 & 4 yr olds
~155,600
HS teachers with BA or more:
41% (PIR 2008)
21% of preschools serving subsidized children are of high quality across 3
domains: emotional support, classroom organization,
instructional support
Kindergarten Enrollment
 Number of 5 year olds (2009): 80,281
 Students enrolled in kindergarten (2009): 68,540
 Of enrollees, 75% in fall day K; 25% part day K
Without a unique child ID
across EEC & ESE and
either Entry to K or Exit PreK
readiness measures tied to
teachers and programs, we
can’t know about K readiness.
19
MA Achievement Gap Data:
3rd Grade English/Language Arts & Math
MCAS Results: English and Language Arts
 33% at Needs Improvement Level
 11% at Warning/Failing Level
~70,300
3rd graders
took
MCAS
MCAS Results: Mathematics
 25% at Needs Improvement Level
 14% at Warning/Failing Level
MCAS Results: ELA for Low Income Students
 69% at Warning/Failing Level
MCAS Results: Math for Low Income Students
 70% at Warning/Failing Level
MA has a significant
3rd grade achievement gap.
When did it begin?
How could it have been
prevented?
20
Next steps?
Ensure that the proposed
EEC Unified Data System
has (a) the three ECIS core
components (child, staffing
& program IDs), (b) can be
linked across B-9 agencies,
and (c) takes full advantage
of ARRA and FFY 10
opportunities.
21
Are there enhancements that should be made in
the proposed EEC Unified Data System to assure
cross-agency B-5 linkages?
All EEC licensed, exempt, and
funded programs as well as
non EEC licensable programs
(e.g., public school programs)
as well as their parent
organizations or systems.
All Individuals currently
working with or interested in
working with children from
birth to 14 years (or 22
years for special needs).
Programs
Educators
Any member
of the public
Families and
Public
Secure, Customized User Portal
Educator
Functions
Program
Functions
Public EEC Web
Site
Intermediary
Functions
EEC Staff
Functions
Secure Web
Services Exchanges
Unified System Access Routes
Other agencies and
systems including state
and federal agencies and
offices (e.g., DCF, ESE,
DYS, DPH, MMARS, etc.)
Other entities such as
CCR&Rs and CPCs
that perform functions
on behalf of EEC.
Intermediaries
EEC Staff
22
EEC staff including
central office and
regionally based staff.
Other Agencies
22
Are EEC and ESE ready and able to compete
effectively for federal funds?
ARRA SLDS (ESE)
 Due to the feds by
11.19.09
 Could provide some
funding for next stage Early
Childhood Information
System (ECIS) development
as part of P-20 Statewide
Longitudinal Data System
ARRA CCDBG (EEC)
 $2.7 m funds now in CT
for Infant & Toddler quality,
and ECE quality
improvement
 Could support:
(a) Early childhood data
system (b) Pilot required
QRIS system (early care and
Ed quality)
FFY 10 Early Learning
Challenge Grants
ARRA Statewide Advisory
Council for Early Ed and
Care

Governor chooses
agency that will submit
 Submits its own grant
 Due to the feds by August
10, 2010

Likely due in later spring
2010
MA award: $1.4 million one
time award over 2-3 years
SAC grant application makes
recommendations re:
(a) Unified early childhood data
system
(b) Early care and ed quality
improvement
US Total $8 billion over 8
years
Key components:
(a) Early childhood data
system
(b) B-5 quality improvement
system (QRIS)
(c) ECE workforce plan
23
Are we ready to build a great team effort involving both EEC and
ESE around a PreK-3 educational framework, anchored in timely,
accessible, useful data on effective teaching and learning?
College
& Career
Graduate
HS
Pass
Mastery
Tests
Early Childhood Information System
Ready
for K
Ready
for PreK
Born
Learning
Prenatal to Three
P-20 Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems
Preschool
K
3rd- 8th
Grade
High
School
Adult
24
We MUST be ready because
they are waiting.