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Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction
Section 649(g) of the Head Start Act, as amended by the Coats Human Services Reauthorization Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-285) required the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to conduct a national analysis of the impact of Head Start. The legislation also charged the Secretary to appoint an independent panel of experts to review and make recommendations on the design of a plan for research on the impact of Head Start within one year after the date of enactment of P.L. 105-285, to advise the Secretary regarding the progress of the research, and to comment on the interim and final research reports. Three reports to Congress were mandated in the legislation. The first required interim report, summarizing the deliberations and recommendations of the Advisory Committee, was completed and transmitted to Congress in October 1999. The second report to Congress, describing the background and purposes of the study, the progress made to date in implementing the study, and the activities undertaken to conduct a field test and prepare for the full study, was submitted in June 2002. This third mandated report describes the status of the study activities to date, including preliminary information from the fall 2002 baseline data collection.
Background
The Head Start program provides comprehensive early childhood development services to low-income children and their families. Over the last decade the program has experienced significant growth, particularly as greater attention has been paid to the need for early intervention in the lives of low-income children. During this period of growth, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) released two reports underlining the lack of rigorous research on Head Start’s effectiveness, i.e., “. . .the body of research on current Head Start is insufficient to draw conclusions about the impact of the national program,”6 and, as a consequence, “. . .the Federal government’s significant financial investment in the Head Start program, including plans to increase the number of children served and enhance the quality of the program, warrants definitive research studies, even though they may be costly.”7
Based upon the GAO recommendation, and the testimony of research methodologists and early childhood experts, Congress mandated through the 1998 reauthorization of Head Start that DHHS determine, on a national level, the impact of Head Start on the children it serves.8 In October 2000, DHHS awarded a contract to Westat in collaboration with The Urban Institute, the American Institutes for Research, and Decision Information Resources to conduct this research study.
Given the very specific legislative mandate, along with input from the Advisory Committee on Head Start Research, DHHS has implemented the most rigorous and scientific study, given ethical constraints, which have been described in earlier reports to Congress. The design is built upon the Advisory Committee report, Evaluating Head Start: A Recommended Framework for Studying the Impact of the Head Start Program. This report set forth a framework for research on the impact of Head Start that is both scientifically credible and feasible. The Committee acknowledged that the legislative language recommended the use of a rigorous methodology, including random assignment of children to Head Start and non-Head Start groups at a diverse group of sites, selected nationally and reflecting the range of Head Start quality across the country. The report also noted that the legislative mandate clearly requires that the impact study must address two main questions. These questions are discussed in the next section.
The Congressional Mandate
The goal of the national Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) is to answer the following critically important policy questions mandated in the 1998 legislation:9
- “What difference does Head Start make to key outcomes of development and learning (and in particular, the multiple domains of school readiness) for low-income children? What difference does Head Start make to parental practices that contribute to children’s school readiness?”
- “Under what circumstances does Head Start achieve the greatest impact? What works for which children? What Head Start services are most related to impact?”
The first policy question consists of two parts: (1) the overall average effect of Head Start on the extent to which children enter school ready to learn, representing the direct impact of program participation on children’s early development, and (2) the extent to which Head Start participation has an indirect effect by improving the ability of parents to support their children’s learning and development, i.e., these factors are hypothesized to have a subsequent effect on the school readiness, and later school performance, of participating Head Start children. Though not specifically identified, it is also valuable to understand the extent to which Head Start participation may affect the nature, duration, and quality of their early care and program experiences, which may, in turn, also lead to improvements in school readiness.
The second policy question recognizes the importance of also understanding how the impact of Head Start may vary: (1) it could vary for different types of children and their families; (2) it could vary according to the nature, duration, or quality of a child’s early care and program experiences; or (3) it could vary among different communities.
These policy questions led to the specification of the following research questions that have guided the design and implementation of the Head Start Impact Study and that will form the basis for the eventual assessment of the efficacy of Head Start services:10
- Direct and indirect impacts:
- What impact does Head Start have on school readiness including children’s approaches to learning; language development and emergent literacy; mathematical ability; physical well-being and motor development; and social and emotional development?
- What impact does Head Start have on parental practices that contribute to children’s school readiness (e.g., time spent reading to their child)? To what extent are these parenting practices related to child development outcomes?
- What impact does Head Start have on the nature and quality
of children’s early care and program experiences (e.g.,
the intensity of reading instruction)? To what extent are
these experiences related to child development outcomes?
- Variation in impacts related to external
and pre-program characteristics:
- Do impacts vary according to children’s characteristics at the time of entry into Head Start? These can include characteristics such as gender, race/ethnicity, age at program entry (3- vs. 4-year-olds), presence of disabilities, as well as the child’s status on a number of developmental characteristics (e.g., emergent language ability) at the point of Head Start entry.
- Do impacts vary by characteristics of the child’s home environment at the time of entry into Head Start? These can include characteristics such as family structure (e.g., single parent, teen mother), household income, and parental practices related to school readiness before exposure to Head Start.
- Do impacts vary by the characteristics of the communities
in which Head Start programs operate? These include factors
such as indicators of the economic and social environment
(e.g., poverty, unemployment rates), and the policy environment
related to the availability and quality of alternative services
for low-income children (e.g., state and local government
funding for preschool programs).
- Variation in impact related to characteristics
that may be affected by Head Start participation:
- Do impacts vary by parent’s ability to support their children’s development and/or characteristics of the home environment?
- Do impacts on children vary by the nature, duration, and quality of their early care and program experiences? For example, do impacts vary by the amount of language instruction they receive.
Contents of This Report
The Head Start Impact Study is one of only a handful of nationally representative, randomized design studies. In recommending a randomized design, the Advisory Committee acknowledged a number of challenges to implementing such a design in a well-established popular program such as Head Start. The remainder of this report presents the progress made toward meeting these challenges. It is divided into three chapters. Chapter 2 describes the design of the Head Start Impact Study, including the overall research design; the selection of participating Head Start programs, families, and children; and the characteristics of the selected study sample. Chapter 3 describes data collection procedures, measures, and sources. Preliminary information on the characteristics of selected programs and families based on data collected in fall 2002 are presented in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 provides a summary of study status to date. Six appendices provide additional technical details.
6U.S. General Accounting Office (1997). Head Start: Research Provides Little Information on Impact of Current Program. Washington DC: Author.(back)
7U.S. General Accounting Office (1998). Head Start: Challenges in Monitoring Program Quality and Demonstrating Results. Washington DC: Author.(back)
8See Appendix A for the research-related amendments to the Head Start Act included in the 1998 reauthorization.(back)
9Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation (1999). Evaluating Head Start: A Recommended Framework for Studying the Impact of the Head Start Program. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services.(back)
10For more details on the design of the Head Start Impact Study see: The Head Start Impact Study: Research Design and Preliminary Analysis Plan.(ACF, 2003).(back)
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