This paper reports on findings from a small pilot study undertaken with early years practitioners in Scotland. The Scottish Government is currently implementing its key election promise of almost doubling the entitlement to publicly funded early learning and childcare (ELC) for all three and four-year old and eligible two-year old children. A key…

Observation tools that measure the quality of children's classroom experiences are a key component of pre-K quality improvement initiatives. However, the information provided by these tools has limitations for improving the quality of instruction for the full range of pre-K program types, even when supported by an instructional coach. This report…

Producing high quality early childhood education environments has been of concern in recent years. Although research supports the positive effects of high quality early childhood education, there is minimal consensus on the best method of measuring the construct of quality (Cassidy, Hestenes, Hedge, & Mims, 2005). Several rating scales exist…

In order to inform the Indiana State Board of Education's decision-making on Indiana's On My Way Pre-K Pilot program, researchers at the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University compiled existing data on ten states that have implemented pilot pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs and subsequently expanded these programs…

In the fall of 2008, a coalition of Minnesota foundations commissioned a local research organization to assess the state's ability to undertake a major improvement in school readiness and early learning services for disadvantaged children. The findings were discouraging. Richard Chase, working at the research arm of St. Paul's Amherst H. Wilder…

An important goal of education in developing countries is to implement and improve early childhood education. A pre-post intervention-control design was used to compare a piloted-revised versus a regular preschool program offered by an organization in rural Bangladesh. After 7 months in operation, the quality of the piloted-revised program was…

Twenty-six Head Start preschool classrooms participated in a yearlong intervention designed to link the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework with authentic assessment practices. Teachers in intervention and pilot classrooms implemented an assessment approach that incorporated the use of a curriculum-based assessment tool, the development of…