Research & Analysis to Support the 90% Goal

DEL’s goal: By the year 2020, 90% of five-year-olds will be ready for kindergarten, with race and family income no longer predictors of readiness.

In Spring 2016 the Department of Early Learning (DEL) established its first ever agency-wide Research & Analysis team, and we’re excited about the opportunity to support the agency’s 90 percent goal. Our team is made up of 2 researchers and 2 analysts whose job it is to make meaning out of data and help inform agency policy decisions. We’re supported by our agency Data Governance Coordinator and the Data Team in DEL’s IT Department who all help make sure we can get access to the data we need.

DEL has always had terrific analysts and data staff embedded in DEL program units to support our different programs – like ECEAP, Early Achievers, subsidy, home visiting, ESIT, and ECLIPSE. DEL’s new Research & Analysis team is building on that past success to explore agency-wide questions that will improve program quality and effectiveness, and help more children prepare for kindergarten.

In our first year we’ve starting producing answers to questions like:

• How do children who’ve participated in ECEAP perform on WaKIDS kindergarten entry assessments? Why do many children in ECEAP exhibit greater levels of readiness in Spring of their ECEAP year than when they enter kindergarten in the Fall? 
• What kind of impact are program enhancements like Family Support models in ECEAP and layered subsidy having on child and family experiences in DEL’s programs?  To what extent are DEL’s programs reaching children in need from different racial, ethnic, and language groups across the state? 
• How is implementation of Washington’s Early Achiever’s Quality Rating and Improvement System impacting providers and children throughout the state? Are the Early Achiever’s policy changes having greater impact on some subgroups of providers and children than others? 

This graphic is one of the ways the research team tells the story of how DEL is doing at meeting our 90% goal, and how some of our tactics can get us closer to that goal.

In the coming year we’ll be exploring many more questions, including: 

• To what extent do young children participate in multiple DEL programs? To what extent does participating in multiple early childhood programs help in preparing children for kindergarten? 
• How does ECEAP dosage effect children’s readiness for kindergarten? To what extent is 2 years better than 1 year, or full-day better than part-day? Where are the greatest dosage gains made, and for which students?  
• What are the assessment and instructional practices most effective for dual-language learners in ECEAP? What is the gap between what practices are most effective for students and what ECEAP provides? What are the professional development needs of early childhood educators working with dual-language learner students?

The statewide Early Learning Advisory Committee has established a Research Advisory Sub-committee to help advise DEL’s Research & Analysis Team on our work in progress. We’re also actively collaborating with partners at other state agencies, and we’d appreciate your feedback and ideas too. Feel free to contact us at: vickie.ybarra@del.wa.gov.