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Archive for the ‘QRIS’ Category

At the February EEC Meeting

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early Learning Challenge, MA Legislature, QRIS on February 21, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

At his first meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care, newly sworn-in Secretary of Education Matthew Malone called Governor Patrick’s recommendations for early education in the fiscal year 2014 budget “a game-changing moment” and asked those in the audience to urge their legislators to support increased investments in early education. Secretary Malone, the former superintendent of schools in Brockton, also encouraged programs to invite him to visit.

Other highlights of the February 12 meeting include:

  • The board voted to submit its annual  legislative report, which includes an update on EEC’s work in FY13, framed around the board’s five-year strategic plan. The report highlights EEC’s ongoing work on the Educator Provider Support system, the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), screening and assessment, community and family engagement, and challenges regarding access.
  • The board voted to remove several requirements in three sets of Massachusetts QRIS standards that were identified as being redundant in an analysis by the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute. See Program Quality Improvements: QRIS.
  • Commissioner Sherri Killins announced the department has opened access to summer programs.
  • The board discussed revisions to the strategic plan, which is framed around seven key areas: standards, assessments and accountability; finance; governance; regulations; workforce and professional development; alignment between early education and care and K-12; and informed families and public. See Revisions to EEC’s Strategic Plan and Preview of Core Area Definitions.
  • The board heard a panel discussion on collaboration among agencies, including EEC, that serve children and families. A series of three leadership retreats in 2013 will focus on strategies for developing a universal informed consent form to facilitate cross-agency data sharing and for developing cross-agency professional development opportunities.  The panel included Commissioner Angelo McClain of the Department of Children and Families, Dr. Lauren A. Smith of the Department of Public Health, Joan Mikula of the Department of Mental Health, and Ita Mulllarkey of the Department of Housing and Community Development. The retreats are funded by the federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grant. See Interagency Partnerships.

The next EEC board meeting will be held March 12, 2013, from 2:30-4 p.m. at 51 Sleeper Street in Boston (Note the meeting time).

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At the November EEC Board Meeting

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early educators, MA governor, MA state budget, Pre-K to 3, Pre-kindergarten, QRIS, Science & math on November 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The audience at the November meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care broke into applause when the panel approved a fiscal year 2014 budget ask of $557,509,730, which is $69.4 million above current funding levels.

Our research and field associate, Emily Levine, who attended the meeting, reports that the $69.4 million will support access, quality and the early childhood workforce, as well as transportation. Here’s a breakdown:

  • An investment in quality: $15.6 million
    • Workforce quality: A rate increase of 3% to support an increase in salaries, benefits and stipends for early education and care workers ($13.8 million)
    • Quality Rating and Improvement System : A $1 million set-aside to support investments  in QRIS and help sustain program improvements
    • Quality infrastructure: $0.8 million to support staffing to hold providers accountable for health and safety, quality care and quality programs
    • An investment in children and families: $36.2 million to open access for preschool-age children
    • An investment in transportation: $17.6 million to affirm the board’s June vote to increase the rate paid for transportation to support system improvements and the addition of an adult monitor on all vehicles carrying infants, toddlers and preschool-age children.

In other news: (more…)

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At the September EEC Board Meeting

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Pre-kindergarten, QRIS on September 25, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care welcomed its newest member, Mary Walachy, executive director of the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation in Springfield. Under Walachy’s leadership, the foundation launched Cherish Every Child, a citywide initiative to ensure that children enter kindergarten ready to succeed, and the citywide Reading Success by Fourth Grade campaign. Walachy also serves as co-chair of Homes Within Reach, Springfield’s plan to end homelessness. She is a board and executive committee member of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce and a trustee and member of the coordinating council of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Plan for Progress. The Davis Foundation has been a longtime partner and supporter of our work, and Mary Walachy serves on the Advisory and Policy Committees of our Early Education for All Campaign.

EEC Board Chairman JD Chesloff welcomed Walachy as a “tremendous advocate for children.” Secretary of Education Paul Reville called her a “very visible leader in education.” Chesloff and Reville also thanked Mary Pat Messmer for her service on the board.

The EEC board also voted to allocate $800,000 for the second round of fiscal year Universal Pre-Kindergarten grants, which, as I noted in yesterday’s post, are open to new applicants as well as existing UPK programs. This year’s open competitive grants are being awarded under new guidelines that align UPK with the state’s Quality Rating and Improvement System.

The board also discussed plans to review information contained in the department’s wait list to determine families’ need for access to child care. EEC will continue to monitor the amount of time children are on the wait list prior to receiving services and seeks to better understand parents’ choices regarding program type and geography. The review is also designed to help EEC understand the impact of policy decisions on the wait list.

The board heard a panel discussion on community support grants that support strategic planning for birth-8 assessment, screening and curriculum alignment. The panel members were David Thomas, early childhood coordinator for the Barnstable Public Schools; Rita Celia Triumph, an Early Head Start grantee in Taunton; and Dr. Anne McKenzie of the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative.

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MA FY13 Universal Pre-Kindergarten Grants Available

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Pre-kindergarten, QRIS on September 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Photo: Michele McDonald for Strategies for Children

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care took steps to align the state’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) grant program with the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) launched in January 2011. Now the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) is offering $800,000 in open competitive UPK grants under the new guidelines, which went into effect with the start of fiscal year 2013. The grants are open to existing UPK programs and new applicants. Eligible center-based programs and family child care providers must apply by October 16.

The UPK grant program, created in fiscal year 2007 and incorporated into statute in 2008, is designed to help programs sustain and improve quality. QRIS, which defines elements of quality and establishes a tiered system for measuring quality, is designed to assess quality and help programs improve. In February, the EEC board voted to require UPK grantees to be at Level 3 on the four-level QRIS and grandfathered existing UPK grantees for one year.

EEC has established several priorities for the UPK grants, as detailed in its procurement information:

(more…)

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Make Sure QRIS Coaching is Effective

Posted in QRIS on June 7, 2012 | 3 Comments »

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

As more and more states, including Massachusetts, adopt Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS), the challenge is to ensure that they live up to their name – that they not only rate program quality but also effectively help programs improve.

Early education consultant Louise Stoney, co-founder of the Alliance for Early Childhood Finance, provides a thoughtful analysis in “Effective QRIS Technical Assistance and Coaching,” a guest post on Sara Mead’s Policy Notebookblog.

“In most states, TA [technical assistance] or coaching is designed to prepare ECE [early childhood education] programs for a QRIS rating, facilitate the rating process, or improve the rating. It is not surprising, then, that TA staff typically spend most of their time with paperwork and checklists: helping programs assemble the QRIS documentation package or prepare for ERS [Environmental Rating System] observations– because that’s what the QRIS requires,” Stoney writes.

“A recent NCCP report on QRIS coaching found that most TA providers do not focus on ‘early learning related to school readiness,’ model a teaching strategy or intentionally observe staff practicing a teaching strategy. Why not? (more…)

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At the May EEC Board Meeting

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early Learning Challenge, QRIS on May 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care has taken another step toward aligning grant programs with the Quality Rating and Improvement System by voting unanimously to align Inclusive Preschool Learning Environment grants with QRIS in fiscal year 2013.

All grantees would be required to have enrolled in QRIS and to be at Level 2 or higher by June 30, 2013. The grant program currently funds inclusive preschool programs for more than 5,512 children in 95 programs, including 3,323 children with disabilities.  (See Alignment of Inclusive Preschool Learning Environments with the QRIS)

In other news, the board’s Fiscal Committee reported that the waiting list for child care subsidies, for children from birth to school age, has grown to 36,000.

Also at the May meeting of the EEC board: (more…)

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At the April EEC Board Meeting

Posted in Assessments, Dept. of Early Education and Care, QRIS on April 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care voted at its April meeting to revise child care subsidy regulations, effective July 1. Roughly 56,000 children currently receive state financial assistance for early education and care.

The vote came a year after the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) released proposed amendments for public comment. The regulations approved last week encompass both substantive and technical changes to subsidy regulations and reflect feedback received over the past year. (See the PowerPoint presentation EEC Regulation Reform: Subsidy Revisions and Final Draft.) One substantive change requires children benefiting from state subsidies to regularly attend their early education and care programs or risk termination. Another changes the methodology for determining the eligibility of self-employed parents. The EEC board, in its April 10 vote, approved the proposed regulation revisions, with two amendments. The first amendment stipulated how parents whose children receive child care subsidies may include study time in calculating their eligibility. The second amendment called for EEC Commissioner Sherri Killins to return to the board within 90 days with a management plan for the subsidy appeal process.

The board also heard a presentation — Alignment of Inclusive Preschool Learning Environments with the Quality Rating and Improvement System ( QRIS) – about state-funded grants designed to support creating inclusive environments for preschool children with disabilities. Proposed conditions for fiscal year 2013 (more…)

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Directors Hopeful about Promise of Quality Rating Systems

Posted in QRIS, Research on April 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

Over the past several years, a growing number of states – including Massachusetts – have launched Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) that define levels of quality for early education programs, offer pathways for improvement and provide valuable information for families. QRIS was a key component of the federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge.

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) recently issued a report – “A Count for Quality” – that examines the opportunities and challenges states face as they implement QRIS. The study is based on interviews with the directors of 48 early education and care centers in nine states.

“Overall, the child care center directors thought that QRIS offered a roadmap for strengthening the quality of care and an opportunity for lifting up the child care pro­fession and child care system,” the report finds. “Even though the directors were aware of the challenges and shortcomings of their states’ QRIS in practice, they saw the promise offered by QRIS and were hopeful about their potential for having a positive impact over time on the quality of children’s early learning experiences.” (more…)

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“Creating a Culture of Quality” for Early Education

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early educators, Early Learning Challenge, Head Start, NAEYC, Professional development & preparation, QRIS on February 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Amy O'Leary visits Boston preschool (Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children)

My colleague Amy O’Leary, director of our Early Education for All Campaign, tells a story that illustrates how far the field of early education and care has come over the past several years.

Amy has been going to meetings of the Boston Alliance for Early Education  since she was a preschool director in Boston’s South End neighborhood in the 1990s. “It was originally designed as a support group for directors,” Amy recalls. “The conversation often focused on overflowing toilets and the day-to-day logistical challenges of running a center.”

Much has changed since then, not the least of which came in December 2011 when Massachusetts was named one of only nine states awarded a federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grant. Back in 2005, Massachusetts merged its child care and early education agencies to create the nation’s first consolidated Department of Early Education and Care. The same year it established the Early Childhood Educators Scholarship. In 2006, the state created the Universal Pre-Kindergarten grant program to support and sustain quality. Head Start and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, an accrediting body, started to phase in bachelor degree requirements for early educators. In 2011, Massachusetts launched an evidence-based Quality Rating and Improvement System, which defines tiers of quality that include teacher education and training, curriculum, and assessment.

With these changes, the conversations have changed, too. (more…)

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Considering QRIS in Massachusetts

Posted in Early Learning Challenge, QRIS on January 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Two early education advocates – Amy O’Leary, director of our Early Education for All Campaign, and Mav Pardee, program manager of the Children’s Investment Fund – recently answered questions posed by the Barr Foundation about implementation of the Massachusetts QRIS: Quality Rating and Improvement System, launched in January 2011. Expanding QRIS is an integral part of the commonwealth’s successful application for a $50 million federal Early Learning Challenge grant.

The conversation with Stefan Lanfer, Barr’s knowledge officer, is posted on the foundation’s website. We are grateful for the Barr Foundation’s support of our work and commitment to early childhood education. The Children’s Investment Fund is also a Barr grantee.

“All the research shows that quality makes a big difference in terms of outcomes for kids,” O’Leary said. “QRIS is a way to define what quality actually means. It creates a way for programs to assess their current quality and to have a clear pathway to improve. It lets EEC know how best to target resources. Ultimately, it makes it easy for parents to know what quality looks like, and how different programs stack up.” (more…)

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