1-216 - Holding Early Childhood Education Accountability Systems Accountable: Findings from Classroom, State, and National Level Analyses

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In an effort to regulate program quality and as a response to Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Grants, almost every state now has a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). At the federal level, the Head Start Designation Renewal System (DRS) recently linked programs’ continued funding to quality evaluations. The scale of these improvement and accountability systems is unprecedented in early education, and evidence on their impacts is only beginning to unfold. This symposium brings together research at the classroom, state, and national levels to inform child development researchers about the intended and unintended consequences of these early education accountability systems.

Using growth curve analysis, the first study examines classroom-level changes in observed quality, as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), throughout the academic year. The authors then quantify the propensity for programs to be misclassified under QRIS and the Head Start DRS due to CLASS score growth and variability. The second paper takes the analysis to the state level. Using a 15-year panel of Tennessee’s QRIS, the authors examine how quasi-random assignment to a lower vs. higher QRIS quality rating influences subsequent measures of program quality, observer-rated quality assessments, and child enrollment. The third study takes a national perspective, with a 50-state descriptive analysis of standards, curricula, and assessment policies in early childhood education. The authors examine variation in state QRISs and assess the extent to which multiple early learning systems in each state are integrated under QRIS and are thus reinforced, or exist in siloes.

Sub Unit

• Social Policy

Chair

• Terri Sabol, Northwestern University

Discussant

• Peg Burchinal, University of North Carolina

Individual Presentations

• Does Classroom Quality Change Over the School Year?: Implications for Accountability in Early Education - Presenting Author: Olivia Healy, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn Gonzalez, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Author: Luke Miratrix, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Author: Terri Sabol, Northwestern University

• The Effects of Accountability Incentives in Early Childhood Education: Evidence From Tennessee - Non-Presenting Author: Daphna Bassok, University of Virginia; Non-Presenting Author: Thomas Dee, Stanford University; Presenting Author: Scott Latham, Stanford University

• Standards, Curriculum, and Assessment in Early Childhood Education: Comparing States’ Preschool Curricula Mandates and QRIS - Non-Presenting Author: Anamarie Auger Whitaker, RAND Corporation; Presenting Author: Jade Jenkins, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Duer, University of California, Irvine