Massachusetts State Advisory Council
2010 Strategic Report
Table of Contents
Abstract
The Report in Detail
- Background
Section A: Need Assessment
- Understanding the Needs of Children and Families
- Basic Demographics on Young Children in Massachusetts
- Risk Factors in Early Childhood
- Screening and Intervention
- Young Children’s Early Education and Care
- The Massachusetts Achievement Gap
- The Bottom Line for Children’s Development and School Readiness
- Understanding the Needs within the Massachusetts Early Childhood Service System
- Understanding Challenges to the Provision of High Quality Services
- Fiscal Challenges and Progress
- Assessment Challenges and Progress
- Progress in Promoting and Supporting Quality
Section B: Early Education and Care Cooperation and Collaboration
- Head Start Survey Results: Barriers to Cooperation and Collaboration
- Massachusetts Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative
- Statewide Opportunities for Cooperation and Collaboration
- Departmental and Local Agency Cooperative Work
- State-level Interagency Cooperative Work and Collaboration
Section C: Early Education and Care Enrollment and Outreach
- Funding and Children Served
- Parent Advisory Team
- Outreach to Families
- Specialized Support for Vulnerable Families
- Agency Web Site
Section D: Unified Data Collection
- The Departments’ New IT System
- The Massachusetts Early Childhood Information System
- Data Partnerships with K-12 Education
- Privacy, Security and Confidentiality
Section E: Quality Improvement in Early Education and Care
- Development of the Massachusetts QRIS
- Planned Next Steps
Section F: Professional Development
- Standards and Core Competencies
- Career Ladder and Compensation
- Collaboration among PresK-3 Educators
- Professional Registry
Section G: Early Education-Higher Education Workforce Preparation Partnerships
Section H: Early Learning Standards
- Summary and Recommended Grant Priority Areas
- Staffing Challenges
- New Partnerships with K-12 Education
- Alignment with the Head Start Road Map to Excellence
- Recommendations for the Council’s ARRA Grant Application
Massachusetts State Advisory Council Draft Strategic Report
April 2010
Abstract
This report, required under the Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, was prepared by the Massachusetts State Board of Early Education and Care functioning by gubernatorial designation as the federal Statewide Advisory Council (SAC) on Early Education and Care. The report draws from the Department of Early Education and Care’s Annual Legislative Report (February 2010), the Massachusetts Head Start Collaboration Office’s (HSSCO)2009 Needs Assessment report (June 2009) and Strategic Plan (June 2009), Putting Children and Families First, the Department’s Five Year Plan,[1] and a broad array of final and working documents available on the Department’s website.[2]
For ease of review and analysis, the State Advisory Council Strategic Report is organized according to the seven functions assigned to the SAC under the reauthorized Head Start Act for School Readiness Act of 2007. A detailed report documenting progress on eachis presented in Sections A-D and F-H. In addition, the Council has added one related function (Section E) describing the development of quality improvement systems for early education and care.
- Section A: Needs Assessment
- Section B: Early Education and Care Cooperation and Collaboration
- Section C: Early Education and Care Enrollment and Outreach
- Section D: Unified Data Collection
- Section E: Quality Improvement in Early Education and Care
- Section F: Workforce Professional Development
- Section G: Early Education and Care Workforce Preparation by Higher Education
- Section H: Early Learning Standards
Review of work completed over the past year reveals substantial progress and investment in each of these core areas, with detailed information provided for each area later this report. Importantly, despite the ongoing economic challenges facing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its communities, opportunities for the collaborative development of a comprehensive early childhood system of services (birth through age eight) continue to exist.
Major accomplishments led by the Department of Early Education and Care over the past year include:
- Redesign of a statewide professional development system
- Launch of a Quality Rating and Improvement System
- Release of new child care regulations increasing quality and aligning with current evidence
- Development of statewide training on formative assessment to improve teaching and learningat three levels: introductory, intermediate and advanced.
- Development of a structure for statewide mental health consultation for early education and care programs.
- Use of ARRA funds to develop infant toddler guidelines
- Use of ARRA funds to provide access to school age children in programs that support closing the summer learning lost gap for children educationally at risk
- Use of ARRA funds to support partnership between early education and care and K-3 to align and provide professional development regarding early literacy
- State funding of$3.2 million for an Early Educators and Out of School time scholarship fund
Also over this period, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been successful in securing multi-year funding awards to continue to improve the well-being of young children:
- A six-year $9 million federal SAMHSA[3] grant to MYCHILD, a collaboration of families, health centers, and child serving programs led by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the Boston Public Health Commission to identify young children living in Boston birth through age 5 who have or are at high risk for SED, and provide them with family-directed, individualized, coordinated and comprehensive services.
- A five-year $8.7 million federal CHIPRA[4] grant to the state to continue improvements in health care quality and delivery systems for children enrolled in Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program.
In addition to the progress report on the eight areas of work listed above, the Strategic Report includes a summary of staffing changes within the Department of Early Care and Education, a description of new K-12 partnerships, and a note on the relationship between this work and the expectations set forth in The Head Start Road Map to Excellence.[5]
From this review and analysis, six areas of work emerge as top priority areas for the use of ARRA State Advisory Council funding over the period September 2010 through August 2013. These are summarized in the chart below.
Recommended Strategic Priorities for State Advisory Council ARRA Grant Application2010-2013
- Early Childhood Data Development Systems and Use (2010-2013)
- Needs Assessment (2010-2012)
- B-8 Community Planning, PK-3 Partnerships (2010-2013)
- Early Education – Higher Education Workforce Preparation Partnership (2010-2011)
- Policy and Best Practices: Low English Proficient Children/Families (2010-2013)
- ARRA Council Implementation Support and Accountability (2010-2013)
The Report in Detail
- Background
On March 25, 2010, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick designated the Massachusetts State Board of Early Education as the StateAdvisory Council for Early Education and Care. The State Board guides and supervises the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), a state agency established in 2005 as the first in the nation to oversee early education and care as well as out-of-school time programs for children. The Department was created by consolidating the former Office of Child Care Services with the Department of Education’s (now the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) Early Learning Services unit. It operates as an equal partner with the Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) and the Department of Higher Education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Departmentwas established within the context of strong evidence from brain development research showing the long-term impact of high-quality early education and its potential return on investment. The goal of the consolidation was to create a single, unified, more efficient system of early education and care in Massachusetts responsive to the educational and developmental needs of children and to the vital role of families in a child’s health, development and success.Four years after its creation, the Departmentcontinues to build a strong, integrated infrastructure for a system of high quality early education and care in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Department’s mission is to provide the foundation that supports all children in their development as lifelong learners and contributing members of the community, and supports families in their essential work as parents and caregivers.In all of this work,the Department remains committed to an ongoing improvement process that addresses both the performance of programs and the developmental outcomes of young children.
In 2008, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education[6] was established to support the work of the three education departments in Massachusetts in developing an education pipeline extending from birth through higher education and beyond. This goal is completely concordant with that of the U.S. Department of Education’s stated objective for a “cradle to college” pathway for all children and adolescents. Also in 2008, Governor Patrick released his Education Action Agenda, a 10-year vision for a comprehensive, child-centered public education system in the Commonwealth that leads all children to success in school, work, and life.[7]
To support this goal, Governor Patrick established the Child and Youth Readiness Cabinet. The Cabinet is comprised of the secretariats of state agencies with primary responsibility for serving children, youth and families: Education, Health & Human Services; Labor and Workforce Development; Administration and Finance; Housing and Economic Development; Public Safety; and Child Advocacy. The Cabinet has proposed implementation of a “readiness” system to support Massachusetts’ children and youth to meet and exceed high expectations and rigorous academic standards as well as to master the skills and competencies that work, life and active citizenship require.
As clearly shown through the robust base of scientific knowledge about early childhood development, this “readiness” system must begin early in the lives of children. The Department of Early Education and Care has a critical role to play in this work, ensuring that investments are made as early as prenatally. In fact, the Department is, for many families, their first point of entry to the Commonwealth’s education system and an integral part of the overall education continuum. Working with parents, practitioners, provider organizations, and policy makers, the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care can create and support the kinds of high quality learning experiences that have proven to be so essential in early (and later) school success.
Beyond the development of a high quality, effective, durable early education and care service sector for its young children, the Massachusetts State Advisory Council has a broader vision based on“early childhood systems” development. Drawing upon the robust body of science on young children’s development,[8] the Council seeks to support development of a system of services grounded in four key sectors: early education and care; health, including oral and mental health; family services and supports; and early intervention programs for young children.[9]
A sample of programs included within each sector follows:
- Physical, oral and mental health services, such as health insurance coverage, prenatal care, developmental screenings, well child visits and other primary and prenatal care, nutrition and food programs, early dental care
- Family supports and services, including family literacy, parenting education, fiscal supports resulting in economic self-sufficiency, family and work policies that support healthy child development and sound family engagement, access to specific services for families with parental mental health challenges, domestic violence, substance abuse or incarceration
- Early education and care including licensed and unlicensed family-based child care, center-based child care, preschool and Head Start, and
- Early intervention, including Early Head Start, B-3 programs and preschool special education.
In the view of the Massachusetts State Advisory Council, the need for early learning systems development does not begin at birth nor end at the kindergarten door. Rather, a comprehensive early childhood system must attend to the physical and mental health of pregnant women before a baby is born[10] and must continue to seek alignment, knowledge development and dissemination, program linkages, and accountability for quality and effectiveness through at least the early elementary school years.[11]To develop a system of early education and care, the department is focusing on seven core areas which together will support development of the whole child within the context of family and community. These areas include regulations, professional development, standards, assessment and accountability, informed families and public, early education and care linkages to the K-12 system, governance and finance.
No single agency could provide for all of collaborative work required to ensure that an early childhood -- thus conceived -- is available, accessible, effective and sustainable. For this reason, the State Advisory Council will continue to support existing collaborative work among Massachusetts departments and agencies, incentivize new public-private partnerships to leverage the best knowledge and resources for all of the state’s young children, and invest in the development of data-based local and state-local-school planning efforts.
While the balance of the Massachusetts State Advisory Council’s Strategic Report is framed according to information required of it by the 2007 Head Start Act, the Council’s vision for a comprehensive early childhood system can be seen throughout.
- Needs Assessment
Each State Advisory Council on Early Education and Care is required to “conduct a periodic needs assessment concerning the quality and availability of early childhood education and development programs and services for children from birth to school entry, including an assessment of the availability of high-quality prekindergarten services for low-income children in the State.”
This section of the Massachusetts SAC Strategic Report summarizes our work to better understand: (a) the needs of children and families; (b) the needs of the Massachusetts early childhood service system; and (c) challenges in developing a sustainable statewide infrastructure through which to promote and support the provision of “high quality” services.
I. Understanding the Needs of Children and Families
The national KidsCount program, sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, produces an annual ranking of states according to a set of child well-being indicators. Data are gathered from many national and some state resources, including in the Commonwealth from Massachusetts Citizens for Children. In 2009, Massachusetts ranked 5th best in the nation overall. Only Utah, Minnesota, Connecticut and New Hampshire were ranked higher.[12]
While the Massachusetts State Advisory Council has not yet conducted a statewide needs assessment related to young children, it does utilize a series of demographic and program data collected by various sectors involved in the delivery of services and supports to young children and their families to assemble a picture of the needs of this state’s young children.
Waitlist Analysis, Program Access & Continuity of Services Study. This year EEC posted a competitive RFR in March for a vendor to conduct a waitlist analysis, program access and continuity of services study for the Department. EEC has selected Public Consulting Group (PCG) to conduct this study As part of their study, PCG will survey a sample of families of preschool children on EEC’s waiting list for subsidized care, as well a portion of the greater universe of families with preschool children statewide. Utilizing data collected through the study and existing EEC data, PCG will submit a final report to EEC with a data analysis and actionable recommendations by June 30, 2010. Recommendations from this study will help inform the longer-term implementation of the Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) program.
A sample of other demographic data follows.
Basic Demographics on Young Children in Massachusetts
In 2008, Massachusetts was home to slightly less than 1.8 million children under the age of 18. Of these, 475,131 were under the age of six years, and 231,083 were younger than three. One third of Massachusetts’ adults had children, leaving two thirds without a child in the family. Annual births in Massachusetts number nearly 78,000.
The distribution of children under the age of six by race/ethnicity is: 73% white, 12% Hispanic, and 8% African American.[13] This mirrors the distribution by race/ethnicity of all children under age 18 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.[14]