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CHAPTER 6 - FACTORS INFLUENCING VARIATION
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As noted in the introduction to this report, the implementation of the Transition Demonstration Program was designed by ACYF to create 31 unique programs, each designed locally to address the characteristics and needs of the local community. There was no single program to be implemented; rather, ACYF set forth broad guidelines within the original program announcement and guided the National Transition Demonstration Consortium as it worked over time to clarify the guidelines and shape local programs. Thus, the 31 Transition Demonstration Programs began as unique designs, rather than a single intervention model. Previous chapters have highlighted the features of the implementations achieved at each of the 31 sites, the extent to which implementation was achieved in the four component areas and overall, and the variability of implementation both across and within sites. This chapter will discuss some of the factors that are thought to have shaped program designs at the outset and influenced the progression of implementation over time.
DEVELOPMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION
The process of implementation of this demonstration program was neither static nor governed primarily by initial designs. Rather, implementation was a progressive, dynamic (developmental) process throughout which program features were conceptualized, designed, implemented, and revised as the program evolved. Figure 6.1 provides a graphical overview of the progression of planning and implementation and some of the factors thought to influence programmatic processes and outcomes.
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Initially, program designs reflected the unique characteristics of the communities, schools, programs, and populations participating in and being served by the program. These factors included the linguistic homogeneity or diversity found within the communities, the financial resources within families and the community at large, and the structure and philosophy of schools, school districts, and community agencies, including Head Start. The influences of these baseline factors were not only felt during program initiation, but continued to be important influences over time. The implementation of the Transition Demonstration Program was a dynamic process through which initial program designs were modified to accommodate both internal (program) and external influences. Program factors that may have impacted program features included the grantee agency itself (whether the program is initiated from a Head Start program, a local education agency or a combined Head Start/school grantee), the number of school districts and schools included in the programs, the philosophical base from which the program operated, and specific resource allocation decisions made by the program. These factors interacted with more external influences, which may include state and local initiatives that support or conflict with the program objectives and continuity (or turnover) in key positions within the program and its partnering agencies. In addition, the program’s implementation was shaped by its own successes and “failure,” growing and moving forward by building on experience. At the end of the developmental period, the “final” program design may resemble but be very different from the design that was identified during the planning period -- because of the influences of the baseline, and internal and external factors encountered along the way. Thus, multiple factors contributed to local site variations.
Baseline Factors
Baseline factors that influenced variation in program implementation
included characteristics of the families, schools, agencies, and communities
serving as the foundation for the Transition Demonstration Program. Specifically,
linguistic or cultural diversity, resources within families and the community
at large, and the structure and philosophy of schools, school districts,
and community agencies participating in the program all exerted an influence
on local programs.
Information obtained during site visits indicated that substantial cultural
and linguistic diversity within a site influenced the nature of program
services and the types of barriers families encountered in schools and communities.
Sites with significantly larger populations that were linguistically divergent
needed to offer translation services to ensure that families had full access
to programs and services offered by the Transition Demonstration Program
and within the community. Print materials had to be presented in multiple
languages, and oral program presentations had to be presented in multiple
languages or translated. Some Transition Demonstration Programs offered
classes in English as a Second Language for adults. Further, considerable
attention was paid to devising program offerings that were culturally appropriate
and relevant for participants. Cultural customs and perspectives on educational
processes were accommodated in many sites to facilitate program participation.
The degree to which families and communities had readily available, high quality services or resources also had a significant impact on program design and implementation. For those communities with a strong base of services available to families, the major challenges for the Transition Demonstration Program were to (1) help families access services more efficiently and (2) develop or strengthen networks of service providers within the community to reduce redundancy in services as well as to identify and fill service gaps in a collaborative manner. In other communities with fewer preexisting resources for families, the Transition Demonstration Program was challenged to bring these needs to the attention of the community, to strengthen efforts to meet the needs, and at the same time to help families gain access to services wherever they might be located. These differences in resources were found within sites as well as across sites. For example, some sites noted a high baseline rate of developmentally appropriate practices within some schools, allowing those programs to support existing resources in that area and concentrate additional resources on development of services in other component areas (e.g., family involvement). Similarly, at least one site perceived that health and nutrition services were already at a high level at the beginning of the program and required only enhancement rather than development. These resource differences contributed to variation within and among sites as they designed their Transition Demonstration Programs.
The structure and philosophy of schools also had a substantial impact on individual program designs. Factors such as school size, teacher-student ratios, per-pupil expenditures, and experience implementing federally funded programs varied widely across the schools and school districts participating in the 31 local Transition Demonstration Programs. Experience with site-based school management also varied across sites, and occasionally within sites. Sites that included smaller school districts and Head Start programs with flat organizational structures had more immediate access to decision-makers than did sites that included very large organizations with complex, bureaucratic decision-making processes. Further, in schools where site-based management or other local policies afforded teachers and principals the opportunity to make decisions for their own schools and classrooms, program implementation strategies were more localized than centralized.
Program Factors
As the Transition Demonstration Programs progressed through the planning and implementation stages, a number of program-specific factors influenced decisions and created variation in implementation. These factors included, but were not limited to: (1) the grantee organization for the Transition Demonstration Program; (2) the number of school districts participating in the program; (3) the number of schools served by the program; (4) the philosophical base upon which the program was founded; and (5) resource allocation demands imposed upon or made by program leaders.
The location of the Transition Demonstration Program grant within the Head Start program or the local education agency had some impact on the local program design and implementation strategies. Whether or not the impetus for systemic change came from inside the public schools or from outside the school district was reported by Project Directors and site visit teams to have influenced the implementation strategies adopted by Transition Demonstration Programs, particularly in the implementation of the education component. Similarly, the familiarity of Head Start programs with the processes of providing social support services and promoting health and nutrition within families created variation in the design and implementation of those components, based solely on the closeness of the relationship between the Transition Demonstration Program and the Head Start program.
The challenges of bringing together three partners and developing strong, productive working relationships are substantial. Those sites that involved more than one school district or Head Start program in the implementation faced challenges and complexities in implementation not faced by those programs that dealt with only a single school district or Head Start partner. Creating shared vision, establishing and maintaining communication, resolving differences in policies, and creating continuity in philosophy and practice among the various agencies and systems were inherently more difficult in sites with multiple partners and required different strategies and resource allocation than in single-partner sites.
The number of schools involved in the Transition Demonstration Program was a key decision by program planners and had continuing impact on implementation. Including larger numbers of schools in the demonstration effort increased the possibility of broad systemic impact, but also distributed staff and other program resources more widely (that is, less per school or classroom). Variations in the strategies used to provide supports for teachers and families were, in part, related to the number of schools and classrooms participating in the Transition Demonstration Program.
The philosophical underpinnings of the program affected many decisions during the planning period and throughout the implementation. Some sites adopted a strong family-focused approach, where the majority of program activities centered around home visits and other individualized family contacts. Other sites adopted a more school-based intervention approach; program activities in those sites were centered in the school. Some sites adopted from the very inception of the program a philosophy of family empowerment that drove all decisions about what supports would be offered to families and in what ways. Other sites made decisions about program offerings always with a consideration of continuation after grant funding expired, so that no Transition Demonstration Program activity was organized or funded solely by the program. These sometimes subtle, but important philosophical foundations were a key source of variation across the 31 local Transition Demonstration Programs.
Finally, program design and implementation variation was influenced by resource allocation decisions. Some decisions were controlled by program leadership – such as choices to hire professional staff versus parents and community staff, to provide services directly or via referrals, to include component coordinators within the program staff or to centralize leadership in the project director, to co-mingle funds with other programs or to maintain separate funding streams for key items. Other factors external to the programs also affected expenditures, such as salary scales within school districts, personnel policies that required particular qualifications for positions, and agency or district policies forbidding certain kinds of expenditures. Thus, resource allocation both reflected and influenced program design and implementation across the sites.
External Factors
External factors also contributed to variation in implementations of the 31 Transition Demonstration Programs. Each state and local community had ongoing local initiatives in the areas of education, social support services for families, health and welfare, and family involvement in education. In some cases, these state and local initiatives were consistent with and supportive of the goals and objectives of the Transition Demonstration Program. For example, many school districts sought and received funding for kindergarten programs, for Safe and Drug-Free Schools, for family involvement initiatives, and for curriculum development. Local communities obtained federal and state funding to support the development of supportive services and collaborative networks of service providers. Rural health initiatives in some sites enhanced program efforts to provide health and nutrition services for families. The availability of many of these opportunities was site-specific, however, and there was considerable variation in the vigor with which local communities, agencies, and school districts sought new sources of funding and programming. In other instances, local or state initiatives were less supportive of or in direct conflict with the goals and objectives of the Transition Demonstration Program. Several states, for example, were experiencing educational reform movements that were perceived by principals and teachers to be in conflict with program initiatives (e.g., accountability movements that put great emphasis on standardized achievement test scores at the classroom and school level).
Project directors frequently reported during site visits and interviews that the existence of supportive leadership at the state level, in the office of the governor or other state educational agency, facilitated their efforts to implement change at the local level. Some also reported that state leaders were less supportive or that changes in leadership during the period of program implementation affected their programs adversely. The net effect of these external factors was to create climates within which change could occur with more or less ease, with or without oppositional pressures.
Another factor related to program variation was the degree of continuity in the program leadership and key positions, such as Head Start directors, school superintendents, principals, and family service workers. In sites with high levels of continuity throughout the five years of program implementation, project staff members were able to establish and maintain strong working relationships, to build on joint experiences, and move forward without minimal disruption. When frequent turnover occurred in key positions, however, there was significant interference or loss of program momentum. Local consortia spent many resources (time, personal, and financial) on training and assimilating new persons into the implementation network. Progress in those sites was less likely to be steady, and staff morale and new initiatives often were affected negatively.
Successes and Challenges of Implementation
The successes and challenges encountered during the implementation of the 31 Transition Demonstration Programs had a profound impact on the variation ultimately noted in the demonstrations. Project directors and site visit teams consistently noted that programs evolved based, in part, on their experiences. Successful activities were continued, expanded, and institutionalized. Less successful activities were analyzed, modified, sometimes dropped or attempted again -- and again -- until the activity became a successful and productive part of the implementation.Challenges were viewed as an inherent part of the developmental process and were discussed in some detail in previous reports (see Interim Report, 1996; Ramey, & Ramey, 1993). Figure 6.2 depicts challenges in four general areas: characteristics of this demonstration initiative; the local community within which a program was implemented; the program design chosen by a local site, and the participating systems and individuals. These characteristics shaped the nature, duration, and intensity of the challenges faced by an individual program effort and were a key source of variability in the nature and degrees of challenges faced by the 31 sites.
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In general, challenges associated with this demonstration initiative related to specific features (or mandates) found within the initial program design as specified by ACYF. The most challenging features were making the Governing Boards viable decision-making bodies, as well as fulfilling the requirements of the local evaluation component. Reconciling local and national evaluation plans, maintaining consistent involvement of comparison participants over the five years of the study, and dealing with the analytic complexities imposed by the evaluation design have been areas of particular challenge for many sites.
Challenges associated with the characteristics of the community within which the program was implemented included: dealing with cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity among families; creating and facilitating community networks of providers; removing barriers to access; and dealing with family mobility. These challenges varied substantially across sites based on the community context. For example, in some sites, families tended to stay within the community for a long period of time, reducing the impact of family mobility on program delivery and evaluation, while in other sites mobility among families was quite high and the associated challenges were substantial. Similarly, some sites had very homogenous populations with little linguistic diversity, while other sites had great linguistic and cultural diversity among participating families. These sites faced many challenges in their efforts to increase appropriate and relevant activities, to reduce barriers to access for families, and to accommodate the diversity in the evaluation process.
Challenges associated with the characteristics of the local program’s design included staffing, creating and developing effective partnerships, establishing effective ongoing communication, and documenting program implementation. Staffing presented unique challenges in those sites with large, complex organizations and agencies as grantees. Extensive and complicated hiring procedures often contributed to delays in hiring key staff at the beginning of the project and as turnover occurred during the implementation years. These staffing delays contributed to discontinuities in service for some families and schools and limited the ability of programs to respond rapidly to situations. The development of partnerships within the local consortia was more challenging in sites with multiple school districts, more than one Head Start program, and/or a large geographic dispersion of partners. The decision, for example, by one site’s design team to develop a statewide implementation, incorporating five separate Head Start programs and five school districts in five distinct communities dispersed across the state, while enhancing the probability of large-scale impact within the state, created many challenges in the development of strong partnerships and in communication within the project.
Finally, some challenges appeared related to the characteristics of participating agencies, systems, or individuals. The challenges associated with the implementation of developmentally appropriate educational practices, the creation of family-friendly environments within classrooms and schools, and the reconciliation of differences between Head Start and public schools were mediated by the characteristics of the participating Head Start programs and schools within each site. Some local consortia involved smaller agencies and school districts with more accessible organizational structures, while other sites included very large Head Start programs or school districts with very formal, complex administrative structures. The challenges faced in reconciling policies and changing practices within the two types of organizations differed. Similarly, the challenges associated with encouraging and strengthening involvement of families in education varied by site, based in part on the characteristics of the families themselves, their resources, and their challenging life circumstances. An urban, midwestern site, for example, faced unique cultural as well as linguistic barriers in encouraging the participation of a large number of foreign-language families in educational activities. Sites with large numbers of recent immigrants faced significant challenges in helping those families become assimilated into school and community environments. In addition, project directors noted that the implementation of developmentally appropriate practices in schools and classrooms was influenced strongly by the existing educational philosophy of the school participating in the demonstration. Some schools were already moving to make classrooms more developmentally appropriate for children, and the Transition Demonstration Program served to enhanced their efforts. In other schools, the introduction of developmentally appropriate practices required a paradigm shift on the part of teachers, requiring a different implementation approach and generating different challenges for the site. In addition, it is undeniable that individual personalities and the past history of collaboration experiences, both positive and negative, contributed substantially to the degree of progress in program implementation.
It is important to note that many obstacles evolved over the life of the implementation. In the planning and startup years of the program, challenges were most often related to creation and establishment of Governing Boards, of effective partnerships, and of viable communication strategies. In the middle years of implementation, challenges were most often related to maintaining and strengthening aspects of the program and to ensuring continuity in positive program features. Finally, as the programs moved into the final phase of the implementation of the program and the end of the Transition Demonstration Project as a federally funded program, the challenges most often related to the need to extend (bringing in more participants, creating a broader base of participation), create more consistency in implementation (across schools, classrooms, diverse participant groups), and shift ownership to schools, families, and community agencies, ensuring that successful activities or program elements would continue after the Transition Demonstration Program funding ceased.
SUMMARY FINDINGS
The review of the variability in and among transition Demonstration Programs highlights several important findings. First, the 31 Transition Demonstration Programs began as unique designs, rather than a single intervention model. The uniqueness of the individual programs was based on variations in the communities, schools, agencies and families participating in the demonstration, including linguistic and cultural diversity, resources available, and the particular organizational features of participating schools, school districts, and community agencies. Initial implementation was also influenced by program factors such as the grantee organization, the number of school districts and schools participating in the program, the philosophy underlying the program, and resource allocation decisions.
Second, the process of implementation was not static and determined solely by initial designs. Implementation was, instead, a progressive, dynamic (developmental) process through which program features were conceptualized, designed, implemented, revised, and reshaped as the program evolved over the six years of planning and implementation. Specific features as well as the process itself were shaped by external factors -- state and local initiatives, supportive leadership at the state level, continuity in leadership (program directors, school principals, district superintendents) -- and by the successes and challenges experienced within the program itself. In general, successful activities were continued and expanded, while less successful activities were analyzed and modified until they became successful.
Challenges were viewed as inherent in the developmental process. Generally, challenges were related to characteristics in four general areas: (1) particular demands on this demonstration initiative (e.g., creating viable Governing Boards and dealing with the requirements of the evaluation); (2) the local community in which the program was implemented (e.g., dealing with diversity and mobility, creating community networks, and removing barriers to access); (3) the program design chosen by the site (e.g., staffing, developing effective partnerships, maintaining communication, and documenting program implementation); and (4) the participating systems and individuals (e.g., creating of family-friendly environments, reconciliation of policies across organizations, implementation of developmentally appropriate practices).
The net outcome of the evolutionary process has been 31 individual programs, often with variations within programs accommodating the unique characteristics of neighborhoods or subpopulations within a program. These individual programs shared a common goal and a basic framework -- the four mandated components -- but were highly variable in their specific design, processes, and legacies.
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