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Introduction
As part of the Head Start Program Performance Measures Initiative, Head Start launched the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) in Fall 1997. With a nationally representative sample of 3,200 children and their families in 40 programs, FACES describes the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes for children and families served by Head Start, as well as explores the relationships among family and program characteristics and outcomes. In fall 2000, Head Start began data collection on a new national cohort of FACES, called FACES 2000. The FACES 2000 sample includes 2,800 children and their families in 43 different Head Start programs across the nation.
FACES provides critical information for the Head Start program on important aspects of outcomes, quality, and practices beyond the aggregated, administrative data previously collected. Through the ongoing, longitudinal FACES study, Head Start can examine key facets of program quality and children’s school readiness on successive, scientifically representative samples of children, families, teachers, classrooms, and programs. While these data are crucial for decision-making at the national level, there are important limitations on the questions they can answer. They do not provide information on every child in each program, nor do they provide information on or comparisons to children recruited but not served by Head Start. Those questions are being answered via the Head Start National Reporting System and the Head Start Impact Study, respectively.
This introductory chapter describes the history and conceptual framework of FACES and the Head Start Program Performance Measures Initiative. In addition, it also discusses the research design and methodology of FACES, as well as the central information FACES provides in the context of related research endeavors. The chapter closes with an overview of the report.A. The Head Start Program Performance Measures Initiative
The Head Start Program Performance Measures, launched in 1995, were developed in accordance with the recommendations of the 1993 Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion, the mandate of Section 641A (b) of the Head Start Act (42 USC 9831 et seq.) as reauthorized in 1994 and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)(Public Law 103-62).
The Head Start Act defines Program Performance Measures as “methods and procedures for measuring, annually and over longer periods, the quality and effectiveness of programs operated by Head Start agencies” that will be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in the Head Start program—both nationally and by region—and identify programmatic areas requiring additional training and technical assistance.
Conceptual Framework
In 1996-1997, a conceptual framework for the Program Performance Measures
was developed and the measures were finalized.1 The conceptual framework
unifies and organizes the Program Performance Measures to display the
linkages between process and outcome measures for Head Start children
and families. (See Figure I.1 for the graphical representation of the
framework.) The framework is based on the ultimate goal of Head Start,
which is to promote the school readiness of children.
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Head Start has adopted the “whole child” view of school readiness that was recommended by the Goal One Technical Planning Group of the National Education Goals Panel (Goal One Technical Planning Group, 1991, 1993). The panel defined school readiness as a multi-faceted phenomenon comprising five developmental domains that are important to the child’s readiness for school: physical well-being and motor development, social and emotional development, approaches to learning, language usage and emerging literacy, and cognition and general knowledge. Each of these domains is represented in the battery of measures FACES uses to assess how well the national sample of Head Start programs is performing. It takes into account the interrelatedness of cognitive, emotional, and social development; physical and mental health; and nutritional needs. School readiness is depicted at the top of the pyramid, with five objectives supporting it:
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Objective 1. Enhance children’s healthy growth and development.
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Objective 2. Strengthen families as the primary nurturers of their children.
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Objective 3. Provide children with educational, health, and nutritional services.
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Objective 4. Link children and families to needed community services.
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Objective 5. Ensure well-managed programs that involve parents in decision-making.
Each of these objectives is critical to helping children of low-income families attain their full potential. They also represent the cornerstones of the Head Start program. Objectives 1 and 2 represent outcomes or results that the program is designed to produce. Achieving both of these objectives is critical to the ultimate success of Head Start. As parent involvement and family support are key tenets of Head Start, both child and family-oriented outcome measures are included here. Objectives 3, 4, and 5 comprise the lower tiers of the pyramid and contain the process measures that are the basis for the attainment of Objectives 1 and 2 and the ultimate goal of enhancing children’s school readiness. An important aspect of the pyramid is the strong empirical connection between the provision of quality services (process measures) and improvements in child development (outcome measures).
B. Design and Methodology
Each cohort of FACES employs a nationally representative sample of Head Start programs, centers, classrooms, children, and parents.2 The sample is stratified by three variables: region of the country (northeast, midwest, south, or west); urbanicity (urban versus rural); and percentage of minority families in the program (50 percent or more versus less than 50 percent). The first cohort of FACES had six phases of data collection, and followed 3- and 4-year-old Head Start children from entry into Head Start, through one or two years of program participation, with follow-up in spring of kindergarten and spring of first grade (ACYF, 2001, 1998).3 FACES 2000 features four phases of data collection and follows 3- and 4-year-old Head Start children from program entry through spring of kindergarten. For the current report, complete kindergarten data are not yet available. However, the report includes information on kindergarten performance from the FACES 1997 cohort.
Survey Measures and Instruments
The FACES 2000 battery has four main components: the child assessment,
parent interview, teacher and staff interviews, and classroom observations.
The child outcomes include the major components of school readiness, and
are collected through direct child assessments and rating scales completed
by parents and teachers. Parent interviews are conducted with the primary
caregiver of the Head Start child, and tap parenting behaviors, the socioeconomic
characteristics of the family, and parental health and well-being. Interviews
are administered to classroom teachers, center directors, program directors,
and component coordinators to collect data on staff experience, education,
and training as well as knowledge and beliefs about child development,
and educational activities with children and parents. Classroom observations
collect data on both the structure of the classroom and classroom processes,
such as teacher-child interactions.This battery has remained largely the
same since 1997, with some minor revisions based on field experiences
and newly released versions of instruments.4
C. Related Research Initiatives
ACF considers FACES—and the ongoing information it provides about program quality and its relationship to child outcomes—a critical component of its effort to study Head Start. Indeed, policymakers relied on data from FACES during Head Start’s 1998 Reauthorization, as Head Start officials were able to report to Congressional leaders on the quality of Head Start programs and the knowledge and skills of Head Start children as they completed the program. The data and experiences from FACES assisted the 1999 Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation as it deliberated the design of a national impact study of Head Start as mandated by Congress. In addition, data from FACES have been widely disseminated within the Head Start community to assist with continuous efforts of program improvement and have guided training and technical assistance efforts.
The purpose and design of FACES complement related ongoing research initiatives funded by ACF and other agencies interested in the well-being of children.
The National Head Start Impact Study is a longitudinal study that involves a sample of approximately 5,000 3-and 4-year old children across an estimated 75 nationally representative grantee/delegate agency groups. The Impact Study was congressionally mandated in the Head Start reauthorization of 1998. The Impact Study takes place only in communities where there are more eligible children and families than can be served by the program. This study has two primary goals. The first is to determine on a national basis how Head Start affects the school readiness of children participating in the program as compared to eligible children not enrolled in Head Start. The second goal of the study is to determine under which conditions Head Start works best and for which children. The children participating have been randomly assigned to either a treatment group (which receives Head Start services) or a comparison group (which does not receive Head Start services).
The Head Start Bureau is also conducting a field test of the National Reporting System on Child Outcomes (NRS). When fully implemented, the child outcomes information will assess the progress of approximately 500,000 4- and 5-year-old children in Head Start. It will produce a national outcomes report of children’s ability and progress on the presidentially and congressionally mandated indicators.
The Head Start Quality Research Center (QRC) Consortium examines the efficacy of interventions designed to enhance the school readiness of preschool children in Head Start. These five-year grants fund partnerships between eight academic researchers and Head Start programs designed to improve child outcomes in the areas of literacy, social-emotional development, and other domains of school readiness, through enhancements to curriculum, teacher training and mentoring, parent involvement, and assessment practices. Research teams are implementing and evaluating their interventions with Head Start program partners in an initial site and then replicating the successful interventions in additional sites. Cross-site data collection uses the FACES measures.
The Early Head Start Tracking/Pre-Kindergarten Follow-up of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project includes 17 local universities funded during the Birth to Three Phase. These sites will conduct cross-site and site-specific research, building upon earlier research and following the original children and families from the time they leave the Early Head Start program until they are ready to enter kindergarten.
ACF has also partnered with other federal agencies to study children in Head Start and other low-income children. One such effort is the ECLS Kindergarten Cohort, a longitudinal study of approximately 23,000 children nationwide who began kindergarten in the fall of 1998 and will be assessed through the fifth grade.An estimated 3,000 have been verified as former Head Start children. In addition to contributing to this study, FACES utilizes measures developed in ECLS-K in its kindergarten follow-up.
In addition, ACF is partnering with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) of the U.S. Department of Education, to solicit grant applications to study the Effectiveness of Early Childhood Programs, Curricula, and Interventions in Promoting School Readiness. The purpose of these grants will be to study the effectiveness of integrative early childhood interventions and programs across a variety of early childhood settings in promoting school readiness for children, from birth through age five, who are at risk of later school difficulties.
D. Overview of Report
This current document is the fourth progress report of FACES findings, and the first detailing findings from FACES 2000, the second full cohort of FACES. Subsequent chapters describe:
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The cognitive gains made by Head Start children in preschool and their achievement in kindergarten;
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Improvements in social skills and the amelioration of problem behavior in Head Start, and children’s classroom adjustment and performance in kindergarten;
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The relationship between curricula and program, classrooms and child characteristics, including the types of curricula used by Head Start programs, sources of training, teacher access to and satisfaction with curricula, and the relationship between curricula and child, family, and program characteristics;
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The quality of Head Start centers and classes as early childhood care environments based on classroom observations, as well as the link between teacher education and beliefs and classroom quality, and among program resources and family characteristics and program quality;
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The relationship of program and classroom characteristics (including teacher salaries, use of an integrated curriculum, and traditional measures of classroom quality) to children’s cognitive gains and social development in Head Start;
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The relationship between parent and family characteristics (including risk factors such as maternal depression, exposure to violence, domestic violence, substance use, and involvement in the criminal justice system) and children’s social and cognitive outcomes, as well as the moderating effects of overall Head Start experiences; and
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The predictive validity of cognitive and behavioral measures, and specifically relationships within and across cognitive and social developmental domains.
REFERENCES
Administration on Children, Youth and Families. (2002). A descriptive study of Head Start families: FACES technical report I.Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Administration on Children, Youth and Families. (2001). Head Start FACES: Longitudinal findings on program performance. Third progress report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Administration on Children, Youth and Families. (1998). Head Start Program Performance Measures: Second progress report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Administration on Children, Youth and Families. (1997). First progress report on the Head Start Program Performance Measures. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Administration on Children, Youth and Families. (1995). Charting our progress: Development of the Head Start Program Performance Measures. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Goal One Technical Planning Group. (1991). The Goal One Technical Planning Subgroup report on school readiness. In National Education Goals Panel (Ed.), Potential strategies for long-term indicator development: Reports of the technical planning subgroups (Report No. 91-0, pp. 1-18). Washington, DC: National Education Goals Panel.
Goal One Technical Planning Group. (1993). Reconsidering children’s early development and learning: Toward shared beliefs and vocabulary. Draft report to the National Education Goals Panel. Washington, DC: National Education Goals Panel.
1See Head Start FACES: Longitudinal findings on program performance. Third progress report (ACYF, 2001) for a list of the 24 Program Performance Measures.(back)
2See the Appendix for details on sample design and response rates.(back)
3The initial cohort of FACES also included an embedded case study of a longitudinal sample of 120 randomly selected families from the larger FACES sample; see A Descriptive Study of Head Start Families: FACES Technical Report I, (ACYF, 2002).(back)
4See the Appendix for details on data collection instruments.(back)
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