Mathematica Policy Research is conducting the Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education project for the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families. Working with consultant Elizabeth Davis from the University of Minnesota, Mathematica will develop measures of implementation and cost to give stakeholders information about supporting and providing quality care in centers serving children from birth to age 5.
One of the first tasks of the project was to develop a literature review that identifies variations in implementation and costs that can affect quality within an ECE center. Findings include:
1. Research shows some associations between the features of an ECE center and ECE quality or children’s outcomes, but the lack of clear evidence means that data collection must start broad. Most of the evidence of the association between specific program features, program quality, and child outcomes is correlational and few studies have been able to speak to the combined effects of program features. Centers may be able to achieve quality with different combinations of features.
2. Factors beyond the classroom at the center level can affect implementation and are important to measure. Implementation science identifies factors that support the infrastructure and environment necessary for successful implementation as well as specific activities that an entity should pursue to support strong implementation.
3. Current measurement of the cost-to-quality relationship provides little direction for those who wish to invest in quality. The field needs disaggregated measures of costs that capture differences in how centers allocate resources in ways that are meaningful but are not captured in comparisons of total or full costs.
4. We must align measures of implementation and cost to inform efforts to improve quality. There is a need for aligned measures that will better assess how an ECE center functions and allocates resources in ways that may support quality.
Read the full literature review.