| Description: |
CCDF, Pre-K and Head Start all serve low-income children under the age of 5, but each of these programs is guided by different goals, standards, delivery models, and operational hours, resulting in unique strengths as well as differences in quality. Research has shown that child care providers in collaboration with Head Start demonstrate benefits over comparison providers in terms of program quality, teacher quality, and classroom quality. However, questions remain about the nature and impact of multi-program collaborations on desired outcomes. Our study is designed to address questions about the nature and impact of child care, pre-K, and Head Start collaboration. We are analyzing state, provider-and child-level data provided by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services (ODJFS), and existing survey datasets from Education Development Center, Inc (EDC) to address the following research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of programs that are engaged in collaboration?; (2) What are the characteristics of teachers who work in programs engaged in collaboration?; (3) What are the characteristics of the children who are enrolled in programs engaged in collaboration?; (4) Is there a relationship between collaboration and classroom quality?; (5) Is there a relationship between collaboration and teacher professional development?; (6) Is there a relationship between collaboration and child growth? |
