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Partnerships between Early Head Start (EHS) programs and child care providers aim to increase access to high quality, comprehensive services that meet the needs of infants and toddlers from families with low incomes. Quality in early care and education matters. In prior research, high quality early care and education was associated with better outcomes for children, particularly children living in poverty. The EHS Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) conceptual framework illustrates how multiple dimensions of quality may be associated with infant and toddler development and learning. In this brief, the authors use this framework and adopt a definition of child care quality to include the structural features of classrooms and characteristics of staff as well as the process quality of the interactions and relationships between teachers and children, and parents and teachers. Drawing on data from Baby FACES 2018, this brief fills a gap in knowledge on EHS-CC partnerships by providing a snapshot of quality in partner classrooms--that is, classrooms in child care partner centers that included at least one child enrolled in EHS. [For "Early Head Start Programs, Staff, and Infants/Toddlers and Families Served: Baby FACES 2018 Data Tables. OPRE Report 2021-92," see ED613544.]

Adults who provide care and education to young children have a great responsibility, as children's early environment and relationships have profound and lifelong effects. The Early Head Start conceptual framework recognizes that the characteristics of teachers and home visitors who deliver core Early Head Start services to children and families are an important factor in achieving quality. The framework illustrates several pathways through which Early Head Start staff might influence service quality and promote enhanced outcomes for children and families. In this brief, the authors use data collected in spring 2018 from a nationally representative sample to describe Early Head Start teachers' and home visitors' characteristics, the program activities (or processes) they are part of, and how well their programs operate (or function). The authors also examine how staff-specific program processes and program functioning are associated with job satisfaction for teachers and home visitors.

Early Head Start provides a comprehensive array of services for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers. The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) 2018 provides a wealth of information about Early Head Start programs, center-based or home-based services, teachers and home visitors, and the children and families they serve. Specifically, Baby FACES 2018 describes the children and families participating in Early Head Start, the services they receive, and the staff who serve them. It also describes how programs support staff to ensure the provision of high-quality services and how the quality of those services relate to the well-being of children and families. Baby FACES 2018 focuses on the processes that classrooms and home visitors use to support responsive relationships, including teacher-child relationships, staff-parent relationships, and parent-child relationships. The study was designed to answer these overarching research questions: (1) How do Early Head Start services support the development of infants and toddlers in the context of nurturing, responsive relationships? and (2) What is the quality of responsive services provided by teachers and home visitors in Early Head Start? The 2018 data collection concentrated on the classroom context and explored classroom processes and teacher-child relationships in depth, with multiple observation-based measures of classrooms and teachers. This report shares key information about the study, including the design, methods, and findings. The tables in this report give an overview of the data collected in Baby FACES 2018, and describe the Early Head Start program and center services and staff, the families served by the program and how children and families are doing in important areas of child and family well-being, and the evidence of responsive relationships in Early Head Start. These data can inform program planning, technical assistance, and future research. [For "A Snapshot of Quality in Child Care Centers That Partner with Early Head Start Programs: Insights from Baby FACES 2018. OPRE Report 2022-121," see ED621911.]

Head Start is a national program that aims to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled children and families. The program places special emphasis on helping preschoolers develop the reading, language, social-emotional, mathematics, and science skills they need to be successful in school. It also seeks to engage parents in their children's learning and to promote their progress toward their own educational goals (Administration for Children and Families [ACF] 2017). It also offers supports related to children's home or Native language and culture based on community needs and priorities. The Head Start program aims to achieve these goals by providing comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families through grants to local public and private nonprofit and for profit agencies. To date, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of descriptive information on Head Start and preschool children ages 3 to 5 years old who attend the program, with the most recent round in 2014. In 2015, a new study--the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES 2015)--focused on Region XI, which are programs operated by federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. AI/AN FACES 2015 is the first national study of Region XI AI/AN Head Start children and their families, classrooms, and programs. The study presents a new opportunity to explore the psychometric performance of commonly used measures of preschoolers' cognitive and social-emotional development. This technical report describes the performance of cognitive and social-emotional measures of preschoolers' development for AI/AN children, using recent data from AI/AN FACES 2015 and FACES 2014. The purpose of this technical report is to present findings from analyses of how preschool cognitive and social-emotional measures performed in AI/AN FACES 2015. The authors examined the internal consistency of measures when administered to AI/AN children, reviewed descriptive statistics as context of difference in mean ability across groups in the AI/AN FACES 2015 and FACES 2014 samples, conducted analyses of differential item functioning (DIF) within cognitive measures to compare the performance of AI/AN children and White children (including data from FACES 2014), and examined the strength of bivariate correlations between measures of similar constructs and different constructs to assess evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity. The findings, therefore, provide initial evidence on the reliability and validity of the measures for AI/AN preschoolers.

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) is a descriptive study of Early Head Start programs designed to inform policy and practice at both national and local levels. Baby FACES follows two cohorts of children through their time in Early Head Start, starting in 2009, the first wave of data collection. The Newborn Cohort includes 194 pregnant mothers and newborn children; and the-1-year-old Cohort includes 782 children who were approximately 1 year old (ranging from 10 to 15 months) at the outset of the study. This Baby FACES report focuses on the second wave of data collection and the children from the 1-year-old Cohort (who were 2 in 2010), and presents findings on two broad topics: (1) Describing Early Head Start program services and staff qualifications; and (2) Describing child and family outcomes at age 2. This report sets the stage for a final report on 3-year-olds to follow. The next report will include information collected in spring 2011 and 2012, and will include all study children who remain in the program through age 3. The final report on 3-year-olds will focus on understanding and modeling the longitudinal aspects of the data to offer insight into relations among family/child and staff characteristics, service uptake, service quality, program characteristics, and outcomes. [See earlier report, "Head Start Children, Families, and Programs: Present and Past Data from FACES. OPRE Report 2011-33a," at ED539261.]

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) was first launched in 1997 as a periodic longitudinal study of program performance. Successive nationally representative samples of Head Start children, their families, classrooms, and programs provide descriptive information on the population served; staff qualifications, credentials, beliefs and opinions; classroom practices and quality measures; and child and family outcomes. FACES includes a battery of direct child assessments across multiple domains. It also comprises interviews with the child's parents, teachers and program managers, as well as direct observations of classroom quality. This brief profiles the 3- and 4-year-old Head Start children and families who were newly enrolled in the program in fall 2006 (see Tarullo et al. 2008) and are still attending in spring 2007. The first section of the report provides background on the study methodology and sample. The next offers information on the children's characteristics, family demographics, and home life, including language background, educational environment of the home, family routines, and socioeconomic risk status. It includes information on parent involvement in Head Start and level of satisfaction with their own and their children's Head Start experiences. The following section chronicles children's developmental progress over the Head Start year, considering whether these outcomes vary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, or risk status. Changes in children's skills and development during the program year reflect a range of influences, including maturation, program and family influences, and other influences in children's lives. Presented next are the characteristics of their teachers and classrooms, including measures of observed quality. Finally, the last section examines the relationships among child, family, and classroom factors and children's outcomes. (Contains 2 tables, 16 figures and 52 notes.) [For related report, "Data Tables for FACES 2006: A Year in Head Start Report. ACF-ORPRE Report", see ED517209.]

This study focused on parents' reactions to the implementation of a curriculum-embedded performance assessment for young children. It examines the Work Sampling System (WSS) (S. Meisels, J. Jablon, D. Marsden, M. Dichtelmiller, A. Dorfman, and D. Steele, 1994), a continuous progress performance assessment system that offers an alternative to norm-referenced group-administered achievement tests for preschool through grade 5. With the WSS, parents become involved in the assessment process. Data gathered from students in schools using the WSS and their parents were analyzed. Of the 350 surveys distributed to families, 246 were completed and returned (70%). Parents in this study held positive attitudes toward the WSS Summary Report and Portfolio and believed that these tools benefited their children. These results suggest that parents appreciate the more detailed information they receive from the WSS. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents preferred the WSS to conventional report cards. Other parents seemed to prefer the letter grades with which they were familiar. The more parents perceived that teachers enjoyed using the WSS, and the more they perceived that teachers were willing to help them understand the WSS, the more they liked the system. An appendix contains a discussion of variables used in the structural equation models. (Contains 2 figures, 9 tables, and 46 references.) (SLD)

Gender differences in taking advanced science courses and the characteristics of schools that affect course taking by high school girls were studied using data from the High School Effectiveness Study, a supplement of the National Longitudinal Study of 1988. The sample consisted of 3,430 students who attended 184 high schools between 1988 and 1992. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling to partition the variance in the outcome to the within-group and between-group parts. As the percentage of females in a coeducational school increases, the average level of science course taking in that school decreases slightly, though significantly. The gender gap is more pronounced for Catholic schools. When not controlling for any other variables, the gender gap is most severe in private schools, but when controls are made for academic pressure and the availability of Advanced Placement (AP) courses, the gender gap in other private schools is not significant. Using aggregate measures of students' life goals and educational expectations did not significantly affect the gender gap. Results indicate that school academic pressure differentially affects male and female science course taking. In schools with higher academic pressure, females do not take the more advanced science courses. Implications for decreasing the gender gap in course taking are discussed. (Contains 3 figures, 4 tables, and 23 references.) (SLD)