Can Oregon deliver on its (Preschool) Promise?: Addressing Quality and Capacity in Early Childhood Education

• In Event: 2-212 - Building and Sustaining Preschool Quality Improvement: Evidence from Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington

Integrative Statement

Oregon has recently rolled out a new state preschool program entitled Preschool Promise, which augments and complements its already existing Oregon Pre-K Program (Oregon, 2017 & Preschool Promise, 2016). Amidst these developments which portray a state with a significant investment in ECE, some challenges have also emerged. Race to the Top funds are disappearing and the oversight board that the ELC reported to as a part of the 40-40-20 initiative has been dissolved. Oregon also experienced 8 child deaths in licensed childcare facilities since 2007. Finally, while program expansion is ongoing, a change in the governorship and legislative decisions have left budgets flat. Because ECE, as currently conceived, is a relative newcomer to state Departments of Education, we had many questions about the political and administrative infrastructure undergirding the creation of pre-K programs and state expectations and goals as it invests resources. In particular, how does the state create and support its definition and improvement of high quality pre-K? What obstacles, anticipated and unanticipated, emerge as the state works to establish a statewide system of pre-K offerings?
This paper details one of three states in a multi-year longitudinal case study, examining state-level
continuous improvement efforts in publicly-funded preschool programs. We conducted multiple state
site visits to gather data which consisted primarily of interviews with key informants. Data sources also
included field notes from participant observations, and artifacts such as legislation, policy reports, and
publicly-available data. Initial Findings reflect qualitative review of 33 interview transcripts and 5 field notes to identify state specific and cross-state themes.

First, program expansion combined with hiring freezes, and high levels of turnover has left ELD staff to report a lack of human resource capacity as a key concern. Perhaps one of the most and revealing areas of our investigation dealt with workforce issues. Rapid expansion of pre-K in Oregon has created a drought in the teaching workforce with the result that unqualified subs or coaches are often asked to step into classrooms to meet staffing needs. Beyond this, raising professional standards led to unanticipated equity issues i.e., how to improve teacher skills and requirements without “whitewashing” the workforce.
While staff remain positive about the overall role that ELD has to play in developing a statewide pre-K system, they worry that capacity issues will dilute their overall efficacy, especially as new state initiatives emerge. Oregon’s recent statewide rollout of Preschool Promise has magnified capacity and workforce issues. In addition, ambiguity or lack of coordinated governance may potentially have created barriers to facilitating systemic quality improvement and may have resulted in ambiguity of mission and vision for ECE in the State. In Oregon, positive momentum behind ECE is balanced against limited capacity and severe workforce shortages, resulting in a state ECE system that could become one of the best in the nation or fail to reach its promise because of the weight of significant structural and political challenges.

Authors

• Thomas Halverson, University of Washington College of Education
  Presenting Author

• Chris Olsen-Phillips, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Soojin Oh Park, University of Washington College of Education
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gail E Joseph, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Molly Branson-Thayer, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author