New! - National Head Start Association

When No Child Le Behind was
passed, it created a debate within the
educational community about the proper
balance that policymakers should strike
between improving “inputs” to the educational
system (like workforce development,
training opportunities, and teacher compensation)
and measuring outcomes from that
system (speci cally those related to child
outcomes). ose in the educational community
who focus on inputs share the sentiment
expressed by John Edwards during the
Iowa presidential primary: “You don’t make
a hog fatter by weighing it.” Instead, you
improve outcomes for children by recruiting
and training high-quality teachers, providing
them with the appropriate supports, and
paying them adequately. Conversely, those
with a more outcomes-focused perspective
believe that carefully de ning what
goals should be accomplished and holding
programs accountable creates pressure for
programs to establish practices that work
to meet these goals. Ultimately, the mission
of any education-related policy is to
balance these two perspectives: de ning
fair, measurable, and achievable objectives,
and providing the resources necessary for
programs to meet them.
e new Head Start legislation goes
a long way in striking the appropriate balance.
On the input side, the law de nes
professional development and speci es the
minimum number of hours of professional
development Head Start education coordinators
should obtain each year. e law also
articulates new quali cations for Head Start
sta , including that 50 percent of Head Start
teachers in center-based programs have a
baccalaureate degree or higher by September
30, 2013. Most importantly, the law authorizes
the resources to help programs pay
sta members to obtain these new quali cations.
e authorizing language allocates a
substantial portion of any new Head Start
funding for compensation that is adequate
to attract and retain quali ed sta , promote
career development, and provide assistance
for postsecondary education.
At the same time, the bill moves the
focus of accountability away from child
outcomes to what are commonly called
process outcomes. In other words, the new
law emphasizes improving those elements of
Head Start programs that are most likely to
produce positive child outcomes rather than
emphasize the child outcomes, themselves.
For example, the bill suspended and terminated
the implementation of the National
Reporting System and asks the National
Academy of Sciences to study and make
recommendations about the appropriate way
of measuring the developmental outcomes
of Head Start children. At the same time,
the law includes new ways of measuring and
holding programs accountable for internal
processes, such as the quality of teacher-children
interactions. e new law requires that
Head Start programs use an instrument to
measure classroom quality that includes assessing
aspects of teacher-child interactions
that are linked to positive child development
and later achievement. e results from this
assessment will then be used, along with
other measures, to determine the overall
quality of the program.
e accountability measures are in
no way weakened by this change in focus.
Instruments used to measure teacher-child
interactions like the Classroom Assessment
Scoring System (CLASS) have strong predictive
validity, meaning that classrooms that
score well on the instrument produce stronger
outcomes for children than classrooms
that do not. In addition, the new law limits
the duration of the designation of Head Start
programs to 5 years, and the results of the
classroom quality instrument will be used
as one of the measures to assess whether a
program will be redesignated. is creates a
serious incentive for Head Start programs to
focus on meaningful teacher-child interactions
— an e ort that will result in improved
child outcomes.
However, a key area of concern regarding
this new balance is whether appropriations
will provide the nancial support to assist
Head Start teachers in their professional
growth and to help programs pay to attract
and retain sta . According to the authoriz-
ing language of the new law, funding for this
purpose must come from new Head Start
money above and beyond what is already
appropriated. e Center for Law and Social
Policy estimates that billions of dollars are
needed to achieve the national goal of 50
percent of Head Start teachers with a baccalaureate
degree or higher by 2013 (Hart
and Schumacher, 2005). Without additional
appropriations for Head Start, the new
law’s promise to strengthen the Head Start
workforce instead becomes a debilitating
mandate for programs and their teachers.
e Head Start community also needs
to be mindful of how the O ce of Head
Start (OHS) interprets the provisions of
the new law. For example, how will OHS
measure the progress of programs toward
the national degree-requirement goals? In
addition, which classroom-quality instruments
will be chosen, and how will OHS use
data from the instrument and other sources
in the redesignation process? As the new
law requires, the O ce of Head Start has
convened an expert panel to make recommendations
about a system for the renewal
of an agency’s designation as a Head Start
provider, and the panel has started its work.
It will be critical for the Head Start community
to be engaged in the process in order to
ensure that the resulting system is fair and
that it provides an accurate assessment of
whether a Head Start program is providing
high-quality, comprehensive services.
eme 2: e new law signi cantly
improves the ability of programs to serve
children younger than age 3 through Early
Head Start; if appropriations are inadequate,
however, it will undermine this e ort.
Researchers who measure trends in
early childhood education nd that achievement
gaps between low- and higher-income
children — particularly in vocabulary
— emerge even before the age of 3 (Hart
and Risley, 1995). Moreover, economists,
including Nobel prizewinner James Heckman,
make a convincing case that the rate
THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION Back-to-School 2008 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 39