ACF OPRE: National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Study

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

By the Year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn...

All children will have access to high-quality and
developmentally appropriate preschool programs
that prepare children for school;
Every parent in the United States will be a child’s
first teacher and devote time each day to helping
such parent’s preschool child learn, and parents will
have access to the training and support parents
need; and
Children will receive the nutrition, physical activity
experiences, and health care needed to arrive at
school with healthy minds and bodies, and to
maintain the mental alertness necessary to be
prepared to learn.

In 1994 the One Hundred Third Congress of the United States of America passed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, specifying a series of eight national goals and related objectives to be achieved by the year 2000. These goals, endorsed by the nation’s governors and leading educators, encompassed school readiness, school completion, student achievement and citizenship, mathematics and science, adult literacy and lifelong learning, safe and productive learning environments, and parental participation. The first goal addressed the national commitment that all children would enter school ready to take full advantage of the learning experiences to come in the years ahead. The eighth and final goal addressed the commitment to build parent-school partnerships to facilitate child growth and development and to engage in shared educational decision making.

Established in 1965, the Head Start program serves preschool children, ages three through five, with the goal of providing comprehensive developmental services in the areas of education, socioemotional development, physical and mental health, and nutrition. The program strives to ensure that children enter kindergarten prepared to succeed. In the 30 years since its inception, Head Start has provided and secured services for nearly 14 million children and families (ACYF, 1997). Two features have distinguished Head Start from many other preschool programs: (1) its approach to assisting children by providing comprehensive supports and emphasizing family development (Parker, Piotrkowski, Horn, & Greene, 1995; Zigler & Valentine, 1979) and (2) its emphasis on parent involvement in both the growth and development of children and in governance of programs ( ACYF, 1997) .

By the Year 2000, every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.

Every State will develop policies to assist local schools and local educational agencies to establish programs for increasing partnerships that respond to the varying needs of parents and the home, including parents of children who are disadvantaged or bilingual, or parents of children with disabilities;
Every school will actively engage parents and families in a partnership which supports the academic work of children at home and shared educational decision making at school; and
Parents and families will help to ensure that schools are adequately supported and will hold schools and teachers to high standards of accountability.

The National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Project has also been an effort to promote the national educational goals. Providing comprehensive, continuous, Head Start-like services to children and families as they make the transition from Head Start into public school kindergarten and through the early elementary grades, the Transition Demonstration Project has included many of the same key features that have distinguished successful Head Start programs: supportive social services to encourage family development; health, nutrition, and mental health services to improve the immediate and long-term health and well-being of children and their families; strong and developmentally appropriate early childhood educational programs to support cognitive, social, and emotional development for young children; and activities and supports to encourage and strengthen family involvement in learning at home, at school, and in the community. Individual Transition Demonstration Programs have been implemented in 31 diverse communities in 30 states and the Navajo Nation, providing a rich fund of information about the processes, challenges, successes, and – ultimately – the outcomes of these efforts. The sites, along with their geographic locations, grantee agencies, project directors, and local evaluators, are detailed in Appendix A. Chapter 2 provides background and contextual information about the rationale, design, goals, and evaluation of the National Transition Demonstration Project.

PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT

This report presents key findings of the National Transition Demonstration Study. Its purpose is to summarize the results relating to both the process and the outcomes of program implementation. These results are important for three specific purposes:

To address the national research questions that have guided the National Transition Demonstration Study;
To understand the outcomes for former Head Start children, families, schools, and classrooms and,
To highlight key policy implications.

NATIONAL STUDY QUESTIONS

The National Transition Demonstration Study was guided by a set of questions related to understanding successful transitions and the effects of the Transition Demonstration Project. These questions were:

Question 1:	How have the Head Start/ Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Programs been implemented at local sites?
Question 2:	To what extent have comprehensive, continuous Head-Start-like services been provided to participating children and families?
Question 3:	What have been the barriers and difficulties encountered in implementing the Transition Demonstration Programs?
Question 4:	What characteristics of local sites are associated with more (or less) successful implementation of a Transition Demonstration Program?
Question 5:	As a result of the Head Start/ Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Programs, what institutional and systemic changes are evident at local sites? Specifically, what systemic changes are noted in how schools, service providers, and communities offer transition supports?
Question 6:	To what extent do families participating in a Transition Demonstration Program show positive outcomes? Is there evidence of increased parental involvement, improved family and parent functioning, or increased self-sufficiency as a function of program participation?
Question 7:	To what extent do children in Transition Demonstration Programs show positive outcomes? Specifically, do children in the Transition Demonstration group, compared to those in the comparison group, show more favorable attitudes toward school, better social-emotional adjustment, higher achievement in academic and language skills, and lower rates of grade retention and special education placement?
Question 8:	Do some families and children appear to benefit more than others from the Transition Demonstration Program? If yes, what are their characteristics and why are they likely to show more benefits?
Question 9:	For families and children who have poor transition experiences, what are the factors associated with non-optimal outcomes?

UNDERSTANDING OUTCOMES

Understanding program implementation is crucial to understand the impact on children, families, schools, and communities. In the National Transition Demonstration Study, there has been tremendous variation, including:

Program design variation. As with Head Start programs, the local Transition Demonstration Programs were to design and implement programs to provide supports to children, families, schools, and communities in four key component areas: family social services, family involvement in education and governance, developmentally appropriate educational practices and programs, and health and nutritional services. However, within broad parameters, local programs were allowed and encouraged to develop innovative, individualized programs that built on the strengths of their communities and participating agencies (Head Start, local education agencies, and community service providers) and met the needs of their children, families, schools, and communities. As discussed in a previous report (see Interim Report on the National Head Start/ Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Study), this program development strategy yielded a great deal of variation across, and even within sites. There is no single definition of the intervention involved in the Transition Demonstration Study. Rather, there are 31 interventions that evolved over time and varied from school to school.
Local community variation. The 31 sites reflect some of the diversity found in communities across our country. The Transition Demonstration Programs were implemented in very diverse communities inner city, urban fringe, city, small town, rural by diverse Head Start agencies and school districts. Local philosophy, culture and experiences are reflected in many aspects of program implementation.
Partnership variation. ACYF required that a local consortium implement the demonstration program, including the Head Start program, a local education agency ( LEA) , and a university-based or non-profit research group. These trials were partnerships identified in the original grant application. However, the size and complexity of these local partnerships differed. For example, some sites included a single Head Start agency and a single school district, while others included multiple Head Start and multiple LEA partners. Administratively, the Transition Demonstration Program was operated sometimes by the Head Start agency, sometimes by a school district, or sometimes through a joint Head Start- public school arrangement that was already established. The prior history of these partnerships in enacting other special projects also varied, from first-time partnerships to well established, highly successful collaborations.

Because of these variations, the National Transition Demonstration Study is not amenable to a simplistic "treatment versus control" analysis of outcomes if the goal is to understand what combination of factors promotes positive transition-to-school experiences. Rather, an in-depth appreciation of local site variation is necessary for interpreting the findings from the national evaluation.

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