Financing for ECE Quality and Access for All (F4EQ)

2022 - 2027

Amid the movement in early care and education (ECE) to improve quality and meet the needs of families, children, and the workforce, many ECE system and program leaders combine, or coordinate, multiple funding sources to meet the total cost of delivering high-quality programming. The implementation of coordinated funding may have critical implications for program quality, workforce strength, and equity in access and outcomes for young children and their families. The decision to coordinate funding—and the ability to do so well while meeting all funding source requirements—might be influenced by factors at different levels of the ECE system. Yet there is limited evidence about the national prevalence of coordinated ECE funding, the policies that encourage or inhibit coordinating funding, or the strategies used for coordination at local or state levels. Of particular interest for this project is how Head Start participates in or uses approaches that coordinate federal funding alongside state and local sources to provide high-quality, comprehensive services. 

The Financing for ECE Quality and Access for All (F4EQ) project seeks to better understand the landscape of Head Start’s participation in or use of coordinated funding by measuring and understanding both Head Start programs’ decision making around the use of multiple funding sources as well as the local and state contexts and conditions that influence those decisions. We also aim to understand how participation in coordinated funding approaches are associated with Head Start’s engagement with broader ECE systems efforts. Specifically, the project will include a nationwide descriptive study of financing in ECE programs, including surveys of Head Start programs and state ECE administrators and possible future case studies that will address three primary research questions:

  1. What are Head Start programs’ common approaches tocoordinatedfunding?   
  2. What are the system-level approaches and structures around coordinated funding that may inform Head Start’s approaches to coordinated funding and/or engagement with broader ECE systems? These include federal, state, or local financing policy levers (e.g., requirements, regulations, standards) and enabling conditions (e.g., governance structures, mindsets, the political will to coordinate ECE funds).
  3. How are Head Start programs’ approaches to coordinating funding—including those that do not coordinate funding—related to (a) system-level approaches and structures around coordinated funding identified in RQ2 and (b) Head Start’s program implementation?

To date, the project team has completed a review of the existing knowledge base, conducted an environmental scan of policies and regulations around coordinated ECE funding at the state level, interviewed key informants, and consulted with technical experts. Those activities informed the design of surveys of Head Start program and ECE systems leaders who make decisions about and implement coordinated funding approaches. Findings from these surveys will begin to yield some answers to the research questions.

Building on this foundational work, the project may include a number of additional activities: 

  • Case studies to better understand the implementation of coordinated funding approaches that include Head Start in variable policy contexts and at multiple levels of the ECE system.
  • Special topics activities in response to emerging policy or analytic questions to expand the knowledge obtained from this study.

The resulting insights from this descriptive study will generate beneficial knowledge about Head Start’s use of and participation in coordinated funding practices and integration within ECE systems, including contexts and conditions that may operate as potential enablers or barriers at local, state, and federal levels. Furthermore, this project will identify promising approaches to inform program strategies and policies by which coordinated funding may support the equitable provision of more accessible, comprehensive, high-quality ECE services that meet Head Start Program Performance Standards.

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation contracted with NORC at the University of Chicago to complete this work, with partners Start Early, the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University, and consultant Margery Wallen.

Point(s) of Contact: Paula Daneri, Jackie Gross, Elleanor Eng.