REPORT
This briefing uses existing statewide and county data to provide California early care and education quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) planners and other stakeholders with important information about some fundamentals of the proposed QRIS rating scheme that could inform California's QRIS design in advance of field-based pilot efforts.
REPORT
California has taken steps to implement components of a comprehensive professional development system for its early child education workforce. However, further advances are needed and more information is required to identify possible inefficiencies in the current system.
REPORT
Uses two sources of representative data, the 2005 National Household Education Survey and the 2007 RAND California Preschool Study, to describe child care and early learning arrangements for the approximately 2.8 million California children ages 0 to 5 who are younger than the age at which they would enter kindergarten.
REPORT
Better child outcomes are the ultimate goal of early care and education (ECE) quality improvement (QI) efforts, but assessing these outcomes is difficult and rarely done. This study identifies five strategies for incorporating child assessments into the design, implementation, and evaluation of QI initiatives such as quality rating and improvement systems. The study assesses the merits of each strategy and offers guidance for its use.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Offers recommendations for improving the education and training of California's early childhood workforce.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Identifies five strategies for incorporating child assessments into the design, implementation, and evaluation of initiatives designed to raise the quality of care in early care and education settings such as quality rating and improvement systems.
REPORT
The earliest years of a child's life are critical to physical, socio-emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development. High quality early education can improve readiness and success in school, particularly for disadvantaged children, but access to such programs is uneven.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Child care studies that have examined links between teachers' qualifications and children's outcomes often ignore teachers' and children's transitions between classrooms at a center throughout the day and only take into account head teacher qualifications.
REPORT
A focus on children, whose ideas are still being developed, may be more effective in promoting tolerance and critical thinking in the Arabic–speaking world than efforts directed toward adults, whose attitudes are already established.
REPORT
In 2008, the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation created the Saint Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Program, a pilot program to provide families with scholarships to cover the cost of high-quality early childhood education (ECE) programs. This report provides detailed cost and program data for a sample of 12 ECE programs participating in the scholarship program, including the per-child per-hour cost for participation of children in the…
RESEARCH BRIEF
Shares results of a RAND analysis of programs participating in Minnesota's Saint Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships to cover the cost of high-quality early childhood education programs.
PROJECT
The California Preschool Study sought to understand achievement gaps among the state's children, whether existing preschool education programs is adequate, and what efficiencies could be achieved through public funding of early childhood education.
REPORT
Explores why Hispanic children are enrolled in preschools and early childhood centers in lesser proportions than children of other races and ethnicities.
MULTIMEDIA
In a Webinar held on December 9th 2009, child policy experts discussed the latest research related to child care quality and the implications of the findings for policy.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This article tests whether parents reinforce or compensate for child endowments.
NEWS RELEASE
California can improve its early childhood education system in an era of fiscal crisis and lay the foundation for improving access and quality in the future when more resources are available.
REPORT
In an era of fiscal crisis, California can still improve access and quality in its early childhood education system through low-cost improvements, such as adopting efficiencies and better use of existing resources. Such measures will also allow the system to lay the foundation for greater improvements in the future when more resources are available.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Finds that California's publicly funded preschool system is not adequate in terms of access and quality or efficient in allocating resources and provides policy recommendations for improvement.
RESEARCH BRIEF
RAND recommends that policymakers use federal funds to support state efforts to improve preschool quality and access for the most disadvantaged children. The related policy actions will help increase school readiness and close achievement gaps.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The aim of the study was to uncover early childhood educators' beliefs about how to best work with children getting ready for kindergarten.
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