Seeking Quality in Early Learning – The Tennessee Story

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

Integrative Statement

This paper reveals how Tennessee leaders, advocates, and early education providers are responding to the unique context in which they seek to improve Pre-K. A small staff at the Office of Early Learning (OEL) is managing a relatively large statewide VPK program that rapidly expanded in the mid-2000’s by a governor who, intentionally or not, heavily prioritized access to VPK over its quality. As more states roll out policies to expand their early learning programs, it is important to understand the barriers and the complex realities that may impact efforts to achieve high quality early learning.

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.

Interview protocols were developed based upon a comprehensive review of literature and feedback from our collaborators across advocacy, policy, and service sectors. Investigators coded a total of 31 interviews, 5 participant observations, and over 40 documents across the three states. Initial conceptual codes were derived from a systematic literature review of quality improvement efforts in early education, focusing on state governance and leadership, advocacy and political landscape, workforce development, classroom quality and child assessment, and access and equity. Emergent themes were also identified and coded.

Preliminary results illuminated several overarching themes related to systematically improving quality: rapid expansion of services with limited funding and capacity, shortage of qualified teachers, and reform fatigue. Over a 4-year span, Tennessee increased its number of students served from 3,000 to around 18,500 over a relatively short time. The rapidity of VPK’s expansion undermined the quality of programs. An interviewee, explained, “We had a pilot that was successful… we grew very exponentially and now we’re trying to come back and say, how do we support quality? How do we sustain quality?” Another interviewee confirmed the problem of expansion, “We didn’t necessarily have the workforce to keep up with rapid expansion.”

Furthermore, licensing for VPK teachers appeared to be a difficult aspect of managing the VPK system. The interviewee said, “We haven’t grown our job market; therefore, we haven’t grown the need for teachers, therefore Ed prep providers aren’t necessarily feeling the need to have a specialty early childhood degree.” Additionally, VPK is the only place in which an un-credentialed teacher could get a waiver for teaching in a classroom, as long as they are pursuing a Pre-K endorsement.

Interviewees shared other reform efforts that were being introduced including revised VPK applications, new state definition of quality, adopting new guidelines for curriculum, student growth portfolios, a new Kindergarten Entry Inventory and changed instructional standards. Although all of those initiatives are designed to improve classroom quality, interviewees referred to the timing as “reform fatigue.” Additional themes and findings will be included at the time of the 2019 SRCD conference.

Authors

• Nancy Hertzog, University of Washington College of Education
  Presenting Author

• Tommy Conkling, 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