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In 1998, the Florida Head Start Association became the first state association in the country to establish a Research Committee to take on a large-scale, rigorous and reliable assessment of child outcomes in Head Start programs. Through a unique partnership among the Association, Head Start programs, university researchers, and Assessment Technology, Inc. of Tucson, Arizona, the Galileo System for the Electronic Management of Learning was selected as the assessment instrument for this project. Galileo provides a comprehensive view of each child’s growth in all eight of the school readiness domains: • Language and Literacy • Early Math • Social and Emotional Development • Approaches to Learning • Nature and Science • Creative Arts • Fine and Gross Motor Skills • Physical Health Practices
Accomplishments of the Florida Head Start Research Committee
· Established a Galileo users’ ListServ to provide program-to-program communication opportunities. · Created a demographic data set for children and families, as well as other variables for the statewide system, to be available to Head Start programs for analysis and comparison. · Provided technical assistance to all Florida Head Start programs, regardless of their assessment tools, through two annual research conferences. · Served as the advisory panel for the ACF-funded Head Start Research Partnership Project on Approaches to Learning, conducted by the University of Miami's Department of Psychology. · Teamed with Florida Head Start programs for this Partnership Research Project. · Provided technical assistance to programs about incorporating child outcomes into their self-assessment processes. · Conducted presentations at the ACF/Head Start Sixth National Research Conference, Washington, D.C., June, 2002, and the Southeastern Evaluation Association's Annual Conference, January, 2003. · Established a collaborative partnership committee. · Provided Head Start perspective during the formation of the Florida School Readiness Program. · Developed criteria for use in evaluating assessment tools. · Achieved 60% agreement of Florida Head Start programs to adopt a common assessment system, the Galileo Planning and Assessment System, from Assessment Technology, Inc. · Acquired 100% permission from Florida Head Start programs using Galileo to contribute to a statewide database of Florida Head Start children’s outcomes. · Developed a resource list and cost analysis tool for Galileo implementation. · Conducted multi-program training sessions on Galileo in three different geographic regions in Florida. · Convened a statewide meeting to provide opportunities for analysis of first-year implementation. · During the 2001-2002 program year, Florida Head Start four-year-olds made gains in all Language and Literacy domain elements, including the mandated areas of Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary, Phonological Awareness, Book Knowledge, Print Awareness, Early Reading, and Alphabet Knowledge. · During the 2001-2002 program year, Florida Head Start four-year-olds made gains across the Early Math domain, including the mandated area of Numbers and Operations.
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Over the years the Research Committee has produced a great deal of reports and research, and what they have compiled is a great resource for any program. Here is a small sample of what their dedication and hard work has produced:
FHSA Position Paper Provider Calculation Rates |
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*The following information comes to you courtesy of ACF OPRE News*
The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) of the Administration for Children and Families is announcing the release of the 2007 edition of the Annotated Bibliography of Head Start Research. You can access the Bibliography at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb2/biblio/. The bibliography is an ongoing effort to disseminate Head Start and Early Head Start research. The searchable database includes abstracts of quantitative and qualitative research from 1965 to 2007, as well as literature reviews and descriptive studies pertaining to Head Start and Early Head Start. This edition includes 161 new abstracts, which you can find under the "What's New" field on the left navigation bar. Abstracts were written from journal articles, reports, dissertation abstracts, and poster/paper presentations from the 8th Head Start Research Conference and from the 2007 SRCD Conference. If you have recently published work that includes a Head Start sample, please feel free to submit the citation to biblio@xtria.com. Alternatively, you can mail a copy of the document to the address below and it will be considered for the 2008 edition of the Annotated Bibliography. Project staff will contact you if additional information is necessary.
Head Start Research Library Xtria, LLC 8521 Leesburg Pike Suite 400 Vienna, VA 22182
Recently Released Reports
OPRE recently released an interim report entitled Oral Health Promotion, Prevention, & Treatment Strategies for Head Start Families: Early Findings from the Oral Health Initiative Evaluation. This implementation evaluation of the Head Start Oral Health Initiative included telephone interviews and the monthly collection of service data. The interim report describes the early implementation experiences of the 52 Head Start Oral Heal Initiative (OHI) grantees including service designs and delivery, as well as successes and challenges. For more information, see http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/eval_oral_health/index.html
Using Work-Oriented Sanctions to Increase TANF Program Participation: This report documents how some jurisdictions are responding, in their sanction policies and procedures, to the new requirements imposed under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It is based on a study conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. of sanction policies and practices in eight sites located in seven states. The report highlights key innovations implemented in the study sites and summarizes what was learned from the study sites' experiences. URL: www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/welfare_employ/sanction_pol/reports/sancti on_pol/sanction_pol_title.htm
The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation recently released two reports conducted under the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation project. The first entitled, Four Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Employment: An Introduction to the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-employ Demonstration and Evaluation describes the origin of the project and the rationale for the demonstration, explains the study design, and describes the four sites and characteristics of the participants. The report can be found at: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/welfare_employ/enhanced_hardto/rep orts/four_strategies/four_strategies_title.html.
The second, Transitional Jobs for Ex-Prisoners: Early Impacts from a Random Assignment Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), Prisoner Reentry Program summarizes the early results from one of the four sites from the HtE project that tested a transitional employment model for ex-prisoners. The report found that one year after enrolling in the study participants who entered CEO shortly after release from incarceration were significantly less likely to have their parole revoked, to be convicted of a felony, and to be reincarcerated. CEO also generated a large, but short-lived increase in employment. The report can be found at: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/welfare_employ/enhanced_hardto/rep orts/transitional_jobs/trans_jobs_title.html. |
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negar@fl-hsa.org | Phone:386-846-0704 | Fax: 386-845-9301 |
