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Each panelist took time to introduce
themselves and share their perspective and approach to the topic
“Linking Research and Public Policy.”
Love: My
perspective comes from two places: family-related and work-
related. I am following my father’s example as a plant
geneticist. My father provided valuable information to the
Agricultural Extension Office at the University of California,
doing things to improve the crops and pasturelands in California.
What I am doing is using information from child development
research and program evaluation to provide information for
programs and policy makers. The other perspective I bring is
working in the field for the last 30 years and in the last seven
years working with the Early Head Start Program Evaluation.
Odom: My background
is in special education and early education. Most of my work has
focused on research in the classroom. My research has focused on
questions such as —
- What happens in classrooms?
- How do teachers support
children’s learning?
- What effects do peer
relationships have?
- How do we implement inclusion?
- What organizational and
systemic factors are essential or barriers to inclusion?
Slawik: It is good
to see so many people in the audience who I know have been
advocating up at the Capitol for early childhood. I can’t
tell you how important that is. Yesterday, the senate came out
with early childhood funding in their budget, so we are farther
ahead today than we were yesterday. My perspective for today is
as a policy maker. Research can be hard for policy makers to
relate to and use effectively. The atmosphere at the Capitol is
around winners and losers, it’s around making the budget
work, and we aren’t very thoughtful, we aren’t
strategic, we don’t think about whom we are hurting when we
make our cuts. I’m embarrassed by this. From our perspective
we need to do a better job of looking at research. We need to be
long term, strategic — of which the legislature can be the
antithesis. I am really looking forward to our conversation
today, hearing from and learning from all of you.
Otis: I am a
recovering politician, so I relate to Nora. I used to use
research as something good to substantiate what I am for. I am
going to be challenging myself to get beyond this. I agree with
Nora that, in the fray, research is used as a tool to make your
argument but it should be used to inform policy.
Nancy Johnson: I
have been thinking about Mary McEvoy’s example and how she
was so fearless. She really believed in bringing people together.
I have seen over the years how research can make a difference,
how we can move in terms of children, their parents, the lives of
workers.
Kretzmann:
I’ve been with the Bush Foundation for 15 years. I am
humbled by the Bush foundation and its history of being steeped
in child development. Irving B. Harris was a great champion for
child development and pushing the foundation to assume some
leadership in this area. Several Bush centers in child
development and social policy have been created (UCLA, Michigan,
Yale.) In 1993 I was given the assignment to find a way to reduce
risk for children in the Bush region (Minnesota, North Dakota,
South Dakota.) We found a research-based program, the Program for
Infant Toddler Care, developed in California. We realized we had
no universal training for childcare providers in the three
states. Our goal was not to crop dust the training but to try to
graft it. We found ourselves over the years about the business of
systems change. We continue to ask states to raise the importance
of infants and toddlers on a policy level.
How does research
inform policy?
Scott McConnell asked Sam Odom to
give a brief overview of the kinds of research being conducted
around early childhood issues.
Sam Odom: It is
important to define what we mean by research in the early
childhood field. First, there is basic research that examines
influences on children’s development, such as their family,
community, or health. This kind of research might appear in a
journal like Child Development. An example of basic research
would be the early research done on attachment that occurred in
laboratory settings.
The next area of research informing
public policy is in early childhood education. For example, the
High Scope project is examining what happens in classrooms and
how what occurs affects the outcomes for children. This research
will be pushing what kind of outcomes we look for in programs for
young children.
Finally, there is research on early
childhood intervention. This kind of research is being designed
to change and produce positive outcomes for children, such as
trying to identify factors and instructional strategies that lead
to positive outcomes for children.
At the federal level there is a lack
of confidence in the quality of early childhood research. There
is belief that neither early childhood education nor early
childhood intervention are effective, make a difference, or are
up to par with other educational research.
The present administration wants to
increase the quality of research in education by mainly following
a medical model — randomized clinical trials that will
answer a specific question. There is an assumption that if it can
be proven, then it will be used. There is a perception that the
hard sciences have a model that education should follow. There is
a belief that if we copy the hard sciences, our findings will be
stronger, inform policy, and lead to concrete findings. It is
very difficult, though not impossible, for education to follow a
medical model of research because of the many variables that need
to be controlled. There is a belief that primary and secondary
education makes a difference in the lives of children. This is
reflected in the formation of the Institute of Educational
Sciences and the Center on Special Education Research.
A general perspective on research
has been pushed by an influential commission operating out of the
National Academy of Sciences, which developed a report on
scientific research in education. The purpose of the commission
and report they produced was to improve the quality of
educational research. Three organizing questions were developed
to inform educational research and are legitimate scientific
questions, with the emphasis on science, and how science may
inform practice and policy. Those questions were —
- What is happening?
- Is there a systematic effect
for what is happening? This question is pushing much of
educational research currently: for example, does
strategy A lead to the child outcome that we are seeking?
- Why or how is it happening?
This is a process question that will explain why the
effect is occurring.
What do we mean by
social policy?
As once defined by Jim Gallagher,
social policy means, “rules and standards by which scarce
public resources are allocated to almost unlimited need.”
Some of the major public policy questions include —
- Who shall receive
resources/services?
- Who shall deliver
resources/services?
- What is the nature of the
resources/services?
- What is the condition under
which resources/services shall be delivered?
What is the
relationship between social policy and research?
Ask a researcher about the
relationship and she may describe it as: Research informs Social
Policy which influences/affects Practice. Ask a Policymaker about
the relationship and he may describe it as: Social Policy exists,
but we need to discover if social policy is working, so we turn
to Research and then Research influences Social Policy that
informs Practice. In reality, both scenarios occur with different
types of policy and research. For example, there is plenty of
research around children’s development, families, and
community influences that may well influence policy. In other
situations, policy makers will go to researchers and say this is
the kind of research we need.
There is a continuum of research
from basic research, as described before, to applied research to
translative research. Applied research tries to understand basic
research and its effects on children’s outcomes. It is
usually performed in constrained situations so research methods
are well conducted. Translative research examines the effects of
a program or intervention and its influence in natural
conditions. A translative approach may be the most effective for
policy makers. Policy makers must make fast decisions, and so it
is important that the research they review be concise and solid.
How does policy
inform research?
Scott McConnell asked Nancy Johnson
to address the next question because of her extensive experience
with policy making.
Nancy Johnson: For
a number of years I have worked in the policy arena. I’ve
never worked as a researcher but I have seen the power of
research. Last year being in D.C., I saw how policy often drives
research. It was interesting to me that the kind of questions
asked are driven by who is in a policy position. The questions
being researched will influence the outcomes and the information
made available. From the beginning, policy does drive the
questions asked in research.
We often forget that research can be
incredibly powerful. For example, in Brown
vs. The Board of Education
in 1954, one of the main arguments used was a research piece on
child development showing that separate but equal policies were
detrimental to both black and white children.
Policy often comes from the
“conventional wisdom” generally held by policymakers.
However, research can challenge this conventional wisdom. It will
be interesting to see if our country’s general wisdom will
be challenged by research findings.
I worked very closely with the
political appointee from the current administration to the Child Care Bureau. She did not have a long-term early
education background. However, she had been very involved with
women’s roles in the workforce and was very open to seeing
how things really looked for children, parents, and providers.
While she was not an ideological person, representing the
administration’s perspective on many things, her own
perspective helped support research for different children
issues. This is very different from working with someone who
looks to research in order for it to confirm his or her position.
Policy makers need evidence to see
what the policy is doing. They need to be able to go into the
community and tell people what their tax dollars are buying. For
example, when a new stadium is built, conversation ensues about
the best way, the best place, what is good public policy. In the
end, people will feel invested and point at the stadium and say,
“That’s the stadium we built.” The Early Childhood
community has a challenge in providing for people something they
can “touch” and look at to say, “Yes, that’s
something we built or something in which we are invested.”
It is important that research provides these tangible results and
helps us demonstrate what it is we’re doing for families and
children.
How do research and
policy improve and increase the resources, both formal and
informal, that are available to support families?
Otis: A key thing
for researchers to do is to make policy makers aware of the value
of their research. My frustration with the legislature is they
have no interest in seeing what is happening and what is working.
We also don’t have as good of an assessment of the
effectiveness of some of the programs to “make the
sale.” For example, one of the critiques of Early Childhood
Family Education is that we can’t prove that it works. And
yet the legislature won’t give money to research that
documents the outcomes. I would advocate that research people be
more “in the face” of policy makers about the value of
doing research in the first place.
McConnell: John,
can you talk about the Early Head Start study?
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Scott McConnell,
Carol Johnson, Christopher Watson,
Nancy Johnson, Carol
Miller, and Nancy Lattimer |
Love: The Early
Head Start (EHS) study is a good marriage between policy and
research. However, let me say that often policy makers believe
there are other budget priorities and constraints. They are
unwilling to spend money on well-designed research projects,
which are expensive.
The idea of the EHS study came out
of advisory committees that were appointed by the administration
in the 1990s. At the same time, Congress appropriated a certain
amount of money from the Head Start budget for families with
infants/toddlers. The policy makers at the time asked that
researchers design a rigorous study to measure the effect of the
program. What was important is that they decided to invest a
large amount of money to study the program at both national and
local levels. A consortium was created that included researchers,
program staff, and policy makers in Washington, so there was a
constant dialogue about everything from what the measures should
be, data collection, how you shape the report, how you present
the findings in a way that is meaningful at many different
levels.
McConnell: Nora, as
a policy maker, how do you use research?
Slawik:
Relationships are really key. All the research in the world goes
nowhere if you aren’t talking to your policy makers. We need
to know you and be accountable to you. Not only are we policy
makers but we are politicians,and we are influenced by our
constituents, as well as by who you are and how often you visit
us.
It is frustrating up at the Capitol.
As you know, the Governor proposed a $12 million cut to Early
Childhood Family Education (ECFE). He shifted the formula so that
it looks like it’s going to serve more low-income kids,
although we don’t know the reality of that. So, there was a
policy involved in a major funding shift. But was that policy
based on research? There seems to be a big disconnect between our
policies and our research. Art Rolnick’s report is the kind of research legislators can use.
It concisely explains the benefit of investing in early childhood
education. In this fiscal environment, legislators are looking
for dollars- and-cents kind of research.
We also need to hear from the
consumers of these programs — the moms, teachers, and
parents. They don’t always understand or know if the
programs they use are based on research and they don’t
always talk to their legislators. They just know that their ECFE
programs work. So, again the relationships are important. We need
to continue to hear from the University and be reminded of the
work you are doing. We need to work harder to make connections.
McConnell: Jane, it
seems that the foundation community can play a big role here.
Talk about the foundation’s role in trying to strengthen
resources and services for families through its support of
research.
Kretzmann: Foundations
have special privileges because of our tax status and we have
certain responsibilities because of the privileges we’ve
been granted. It is our responsibility to try and bring about
improvements in the world. There is a delicate balance that must
be maintained with legislators. But when a foundation puts its
good name to something like Ready 4 K, it says, “this is
important” and we want the public to know. So when we make a
grant, we take a stand.
The other role we have is in the
research and development phase. We need to let programs develop
and let local communities adapt. Our role is to nurture programs
and not get too committed too early to the “outcome”
agenda, which of course is a policy/political issue.
McConnell: Who
needs to know what? Do we just issue a well-founded dictate or do
we educate moms, dads, and policy makers? What is the tension for
you in educating people versus just telling them to do something?
Odom: Policy makers
are often in the position of needing information immediately and
having to make a decision. They don’t always have the time
to fully digest and figure out what is the best thing. Sometimes
the match between the amount of information and the decision that
needs to be made should be considered. If you’re going into
a committee or on to the House floor, having someone to tell you
yes or no can be extremely helpful. Sometimes policy makers can
take the time to evaluate the research and come away with a
deeper understanding. This of course would be the ultimate goal.
Love: I think that
researchers have an obligation to provide policy makers with the
information they need to make informed decisions. There are very
few early childhood questions that can be answered yes or no. EHS
is successful, but you need context and can’t just give a
short answer. Nora, how do you deal with conflicting research?
Head Start has thousands of conflicting reports. You can find any
research you want to support your point.
Slawik: We want
research that supports public opinion or their policy viewpoint.
Legislators and policy makers are still asking where is the
research on early childhood programs? Policy makers need
researchers to be present to inform them when critical decisions
are being made. We can use better research at the right time and
if we knew whom to call on, it would be helpful.
McConnell: Can you
share your sense of how state and local initiatives relate to
this discussion?
Otis: The core of
what Ready 4 K
is trying to do is be an advocacy organization, broadly defined.
We believe the community is the deeper basis for movement. We are
trying to do grassroots organizing of the early childhood
community, including parents, so that there is a common unified
voice politically on policy matters. We are also working with
local communities through the Minnesota Initiative Foundations to
internally deal with the issue and move it forward. We need a
shift in norms around child policies. We need to design specific
initiatives in neighborhoods that are based on the idea that the
well being of children birth to five really does matter. It is
exciting work because when you talk to people, across the board,
their hearts are there. Our challenge is to help people connect
their hearts with their heads through the research that supports
their work. That’s why having Art Rolnick’s article on early childhood programs is so
encouraging. Having an economist validate the field without any
self-interest is really powerful. It gets business people
interested in the field.
Having a community basis is
important because things at the legislature have been very
demoralizing over the last few years. If you think the well being
of children depends only on the legislature, it can be pretty
depressing. But if you think the well-being depends on your
community, school, or neighborhood, then there’s a little
more hope.
McConnell: Describe
the Minnesota Initiative Foundation (MIF).
Otis: The MIF
formed as economic development entities to provide stimulus to
the rural economy during tough times. They’ve evolved into
economic and social development entities. For the first time in
history, they’ve decided to focus on one common issue
together — early childhood. They are convening people in
different parts of the state to come together and make a plan on
how we can improve things for little kids.
McConnell: There
are many elements to this discussion that unite researchers,
policy makers, practitioners—and they are probably at the
level of their heart. John and Sam, I’m interested in your
experience of trying to connect the research corpus with the
folks who aren’t researchers. How do you extract knowledge
in a way that is meaningful to them but maintains the integrity
of the research base?
Love: When we
finished the evaluation report of Early Head Start, it was over
400 pages, with 300 pages of appendices. We spent a long time
working on sound bites. We wanted one-sentence answers to
questions that Bob Edwards might ask. For example, “What did
you learn about this program?” So we’d say, “There
were a lot of positive things that happened with young children
that improved language, reduced their aggressive behavior
problems, and made their parents more likely to do the kinds of
things at home that support their language and learning.”
That summarized a lot of pages and tables.
Another example came from the Head
Start Bureau that wanted to
create a dissemination package. They created an Early Head Start Information Kit. It is still available on-line and you can
order CDs that contain PowerPoint presentations with instructions
on how to tailor the slideshow for your own use. There are two
presentations available, one on childcare, and one on working
with mothers who suffer from depression. As you may know this is
a problem for many women with young children. Forty-eight percent
of women in our sample scored at the level of “at-risk for
clinical depression.” We found that in many ways the program
was very beneficial for these families. This dissemination piece
is a great example of taking research and making it more
user-friendly and available for policy makers.
 Odom: The Early
Childhood Institute on Inclusion did a large five-year descriptive study,
published in many academic journals. We also believe research
should inform practice. So, for many of our studies, we published
one-page briefs that indicated the conclusions of the project. We
met with a marketing expert who said that each brief should
contain no more than eight points, with no more than eight words
each. We then developed parenting manuals, administrative
manuals, and curriculum guides for teachers. We had a summary of
our findings published by Teacher’s College Press. I think it takes that level of effort
— not just publishing in academic journals but in the
variety of formats that people are likely to look at and use.
McConnell:
Researchers are often encouraged to translate their research for
lay audiences. The assumption is often that big words are not
okay, little words are better. However, I worry that it ignores
the continuum of research that Sam mentioned earlier. Is there a
fear that if we distill our research into simple terms, then it
won’t be as sophisticated? Can the panel comment on the
obligation of researchers to translate their work and make it
more disseminable? Good thing, bad thing?
Otis: It is
absolutely essential and important to break down the jargon.
Nancy Johnson: Mary
McEvoy once said that translation of research needs to be
described in terms that are understandable and applicable to the
information that families, communities, and policy makers need.
Odom: Some of my
research colleagues don’t feel it is their role to translate
their findings for those in practice. There is room for people to
be engaged in translating the research, and some of my colleagues
probably should not be the ones to do the translating! Teacher
education is translation of the literature and research. The
translation process can happen in a number of ways. It may or may
not be the researcher who does it.
Slawik: In the
political world, we call it the “spin.” As legislators,
we need the research to be as simple as possible.
Presentation by
Carol Johnson
 Carol Johnson joined the
panel for a brief time during the late morning session. Below are
excerpted comments from her presentation.
Over the last decade, a
myriad of research has come out recommending the need to make
significant investments in early childhood. What that tells me,
however, is that simply having the research and information is
not enough to get people to take action. It is similar to having
the information on smoking; people know it is hazardous, but
continue to smoke. When you look at the research reports, they
focus on the piece-meal and haphazard set of preschool options
that don’t ensure equal opportunity or equal access. Because
Minnesota has a large female workforce, it increases the ante for
us in how we support children as moms are working. In our own
data, we see significant gaps in achievement between children who
come from affluent families and children who come from poor
families, and a lot of those differences are really attributed
back to their early childhood experiences or lack of experiences.
A lot of knowledge we have today is based on the brain research
that comes from the neural sciences. The most recent work around
benefit/cost analysis of early childhood intervention has helped
us look at the issue in another way, such as other efficiencies,
and has relayed more powerful results that warrant our attention.
The National Institute of Educational Research, in association
with the Pew Charitable Trust, has assessed a $4 return for every
$1 invested in Pre-K education. This investment saves school
districts more than $11,000 in special and remedial education
services. A research project done in Chicago found a $7 savings,
a 29% increase in graduation rates, and a 33% decrease in
juvenile arrests. The data set we have describes three distinct
areas: academic progress, efficiencies and cost containment, and
issues around quality of life and how these interventions improve
the overall well being of these children.
Madison, Wisconsin has just begun
offering half-day kindergarten for four-year-olds. They are doing
this through a partnership with the school district but it does
require a shift in thinking by the K-12 community as we move from
being adversaries to partners with the early childhood community.
In both North Carolina and New Jersey, there have been court
cases focusing on the quality of education for students who were
not able to have a good preschool experience. For poor kids in
particular, states are not living up to the constitutional
requirement they have to provide adequate opportunity for kids.
In 1995, Minneapolis wrote its first
K-12 standards. About a year later we decided we needed preschool
curriculum standards. These were shaped by our work in the ECFE
program, our High Five Program, and our Early Childhood Special
Education teachers. We think this set the groundwork for a pilot
program in 1997 to assess every kindergartner when they came in
to the school. We hired teachers who administered these
assessments. We were trying to figure out what the kids were
coming in to school knowing. We then backtracked with some of
those kids to find out where they went to preschool and then gave
that data back to the early childhood providers as a way of
saying, “Here’s what we think kids ought to know and be
able to do when they enter, and this is what we see in your
students.”
In the last few years, we have tried
to increase the opportunity for all-day kindergarten, recognizing
that we still had children coming to school not knowing the
concepts of print, not knowing their shapes or numbers, not
knowing the alphabet, the kinds of things that predict early and
successful literacy by third grade. In the 2001-2002 school year,
60% of our kids were in all-day kindergarten programs. We
continued to prioritize it despite our budget cuts because we
believe it is the very best investment we can make to reduce
remedial classes and special education referrals.
When we looked at some of the
Minnesota Basic Standard Test scores, we found that 2nd grade
scores had 85% predictability of 8th grade scores. This suggests
that early intervention needs to be sooner and more deliberate so
second graders are at a better place for them to be able to
achieve success.
I would like to say a couple of
words about the research community. Often research operates
within a political context. It is important for us to recognize
that education of children is a non-partisan issue and needs to
be promoted as such by the research community. We need a
reiterative process between researchers and practitioners so that
it isn’t as difficult to take research and put it in a
practical application. Policy makers should put in place
incentives to help ensure that this process occurs.
We are similar to Thomas Jefferson
in 1788 when he told the Virginia Assembly that for the good of
our new country, the founders needed a literate public. At that
time, people dismissed him because those who were more affluent
said, “Why should we pay for the education of other
people’s children?” It wasn’t until the early
1830s when Horace Mann, the first Secretary of Education in
Massachusetts, went around on horseback and observed huge
inequities in who was educated and who wasn’t. This is where
we are now. There are huge inequities in who is receiving high
quality preschool and who isn’t.
If we want to catch up with the rest
of the world, we need to play the game. Belgium, France, and
Italy have universal, voluntary, free preschool for children ages
three to six. They enroll 95-99% of all their students and have a
full-day, seven-hour program. Denmark, Sweden, and Finland enroll
73-93% of their three- to six-year-olds. They are integrating
education and child care in the same settings. The Netherlands,
Spain, and Austria enroll 70%; Germany enrolls 85% of three- to
six-year-olds. In the UK, 90% of their four-year-olds are in
preschool and slightly less than that for their three-year-olds.
These are all publicly financed programs and parents share the
cost when they are financially able.
Language is very important. Language
communicates concepts. Old language used in the past suggests the
status quo. We need to create shorthands that conjure up ideas
that communicate early education is about America and apple pie.
This is the way we are going to get changes to occur.
Dr. Johnson then presented results
of all-day kindergarten offered by Minneapolis Public Schools
—
- All kindergarten students are
assessed as to how many letter sounds they could identify
in one minute, and all students improved from the fall to
the spring.
- Research then compared students
who participated in half-day vs. all-day kindergarten
programs.
- Full-day children did
significantly better at letter-sound identification
across race, gender and socio-economic status.
- Some parents who do not want
their children in all-day programs do enriching
activities with their children at home. However, for poor
families we can’t expect enriching activities to
happen in the other half of the day. That is why it is so
critical that we work with early childhood providers so
that we can sustain results over time. A lot of research,
such as that conducted at Perry Preschool, has shown that
sustainability is a major issue, even after kids made
progress in their early childhood programs.
- Another important variable is
quality. How do you take the extra time that an all-day
program affords and ensure that the quality of the
instruction is at a high level? With the help of Drs.
Scott McConnell, Mary McEvoy, Ann Casey, and our staff,
we created a training program for teachers so that
instruction quality was increased.
- Full-day teachers say they are
teaching more, getting to more concepts, science, math,
and technology.
McConnell: Panel,
would you like to respond to some of the points Carol has made?
Slawik: As a policy
maker, the information presented was what we need, particularly
the information on testing. It’s helpful to know where kids
are at in the state as standards are being formed. I think
universal preschool is necessary and needed. As a state, we are
behind in this respect. This is the kind of research I could
bring forward on how much it would help folks to invest in this
kind of programming.
Odom: I would
assume that full-day costs twice as much as half-day
kindergarten. As a policy maker, I would ask does the state get
twice the outcome?
McConnell: Carol,
you went to the voters to ask them if they would be willing to
put up the money to pay for full-day kindergarten. In light of
all the budget cuts, how do you engage the public in what the
right thing is to do?
Carol Johnson: Having
the results matters. Without the data, it is very hard to
convince people how to prioritize with limited resources. There
is a tendency to think that if you have high drop-out rates and
failure rates at the high school level, that is where you should
put your money because that is where the problem is. The problem
starts way back and you have to convince people that they
don’t have to have this problem. There is a way to invest to
prevent the problem. Those in suburban communities are giving
parents the choice to pay for kindergarten. For many parents,
this is just a shift from paying for childcare to paying for
kindergarten. For some third-ring schools in outlying suburbs,
this is a difficult thing to offer because of the lack of
physical space. It requires us to rethink what schooling is in
America. I’m not sure we’re at the place where
we’ve sold it, which is why people readily bring up
financial costs. I think this is the right investment and has the
best pay-off for the future and reduces remedial costs and other
costs that are much more expensive.
Nancy Johnson: What
percentage of voters has no children?
Carol Johnson:
Eighty-five percent of our households have no children in our
schools.
Nancy Johnson: So,
85% of voters don’t think they have a connection to what
goes on in the schools. The brilliance of Art Rolnick’s
article is that it brings to their level the financial and
long-term quality of life interest that voters with no children
have. I don’t think we’ve been clear enough with the
community about the benefits of thinking more broadly about
public education. Brain research has started to show us that
services and parent support should start even earlier for babies
and toddlers, before preschool and kindergarten. How do we put
into context the connection between services for young children
and quality preschool programs? How do we work together so that
the results you see in all-day kindergarten are the results you
see in all-day childcare?
Love: Because you
have to go to the electorate to get approval, is there a way in
which that process influences what kind of research you collect,
report, or present? What is the interplay between the
research/policy/public interests? Did you present this data
because it is the outcomes the school district wants to see for
children or you thought it was what the public wanted to see?
Carol Johnson:
Right now there is a lot of pressure on the K-12 system to
produce results. People think that testing kids will be the magic
bullet. The public also expects a certain level of social
development as part of the schooling process, which is difficult
to assess. There is a perception, based on our testing data, that
Minneapolis is either not doing a good job or not using the money
it spends per pupil wisely. We are very conscious of the need to
constantly treat the public as if they were in a continuous
referendum. Big urban schools have a greater challenge of
producing results for the public. Hopefully those results will
guide the public policy.
Kretzmann: There is
such a disconnect in the public for the reality of families with
young children. In the climate of welfare reform with everyone
working, babies without good relationships will grow up to have a
hard time sitting still as four- year-olds in the classroom. And
yet we have a government that doesn’t want to get involved
with families and their children. This makes it difficult for us
to tell the truth, which is, there are very serious problems in
our childcare and it is compromising systems along the way.
Otis: The
legislature is a zero sum game; money spent on all-day
kindergarten will not go to early childhood. We need to make the
connection between the two. I wish we could document whether
things are getting worse for kindergarten teachers. Anecdotally,
it seems that they are worse, especially with social/emotional
issues.
Love: Trying to
address your question could be some of the easiest research to
do; it doesn’t require a randomized design. What we want to
do is describe what is going on and look at change over time.
Many of these research projects are not being repeated so we
can’t see how things are changing. These are the kind of
descriptive studies we can advocate for.
McConnell: Could
the panel talk about relationships? For example we’ve talked
about partnerships between early childhood and kindergarten,
researchers and policy makers. Can you share an effective
partnership that you’ve had?
 Slawik: Relationships are the
essence of life. My best example is Todd Otis. He talks about the
vision, explains the research, and provides good information.
Otis: Ready 4
K’s partnership with business is essential to our success. A
few years ago we decided we were going to advocate for more money
for Head Start. One executive, who was very close to Don Fraser
at Hamline University, wrote a letter to Arne Carlson saying
it’s time for a gut check on Head Start. This was so
effective that $10 million was added to Head Start.
Carol Johnson: The
Youth
Coordinating Board Partnership brings together elected officials from the
schools, counties, and cities to make sure the resources are in
place for children. They do this through the resolutions they
issue and investments that they make. Early childhood hasn’t
been as much on the front burner. It’s time we reenergize
around this issue. The University has been very helpful to us
with our all-day kindergarten. The partnership has allowed us to
ask the question what do we do with the kids when they are there,
which is just as critical as having the time.
Love: The CD on
Early Head Start that I showed you came out of the relationships
that came out of the federal program. These partnerships included
a national evaluator, local University research centers in each
of the programs, program directors, federal program people,
federal research people, those that designed the program,
technical assistance workers, people at the Office of Special Education Programming, and the Department
of Education. Rhode Island Kids Counts formed a network from 16 states for work on
school readiness indicators.
What do researchers
and policymakers mean by “scientifically based
practices” and “effective programs?”
Love: A recent grant
announcement just came out for research on Early Reading
Programs. What they want are practices based on research that
follow a randomized design. A randomized design would
demonstrate, for example, that children in a program do better
than those in a control group or not in a group. Evaluation of
Early Head Start was particularly advantageous to showing program
results because there was no way to do a pre -test. All the
participants were babies or not born yet! So changes could be
attributed to the program or intervention.
Odom: There is a
concern that if randomized designs are the only standard, other
forms of design are excluded. There are many situations where
random assignment is unethical or impossible. Another
experimental design is called single subject design that can
demonstrate the relationship between an instructional program and
children’s outcomes. The downside to this is the small
number of participants; therefore, aggregation is necessary.
Correlational designs allow for detecting relationships but
can’t always prove an effect between intervention and
outcome. Qualitative designs are legitimate but describe
“what is it” and can’t inform the question of
“why is it?” This is a big issue in special education
because a lot of practice is on single subject design. The
Division
for Research of the Council for Exception Children is trying to create quality indicators that
will inform each of the research designs.
McConnell: Aren’t
requests for scientifically-based practices from the federal
government ahead of the research in early childhood? There just
aren’t enough programs available to study.
 Love: We need to
use good quality research, such as studies and qualitative
information, to obtain resources that will allow us to do more
formal randomized experiments on practices we believe will work.
McConnell: It seems
that researchers look at effectiveness as programs that show big
change, but from the policy/public community, what constitutes an
effective program?
Otis: School
Readiness Assessments (SRA) are being used as the beginning of a
dialogue that can help parents start working on their
children’s language learning. It also can be used to build a
stronger, more focused relationship between the early education
community and K-12.
Nancy Johnson: SRA
set us on a path for having more appropriate goals for kids. I am
concerned that only two elements of the first SRA report to the
community were discussed rather than all six domains, which
included social/emotional readiness of children. There should be
a concern that the policy direction played a bigger role here
than a true examination of the research.
Kretzmann: I worry
about how people are going to interpret the data they read. What
I think people want to know (for example, our foundation’s
board) would be—
The power of anecdote holds a great
deal of power when you move into the general public and research
takes a second seat.
Nancy Johnson:
Programs are running as fast as they can just to keep up with the
response for their services. We need to be realistic about what
it takes to get programs to a place where they can reach their
goals and not use early negative results to get rid of a program
prematurely. For example, Head Start has always been about child
development and helping the whole family, but when Congress
decided to hold them to an early literacy agenda and then two
years later said, “You’re not there yet,” this
reflects poorly on the Head Start program.
McConnell: What is
the early childhood community? Who is your constituency and,
because you are not an ethnically diverse group, do you or do you
not represent the children of Minnesota? How might this community
respond to admonitions that early childhood should not be a
priority for public policy because families should be attending
to their children and making choices?
Love: As a
researcher, it is not up to me to decide whether early childhood
programs are a priority in your community. But if your community
does feel it’s a priority, then it is my job to help you
understand the research and apply it to early childhood programs.
Otis: The answer to
this question should be guided by acting as if we as a society
really cared about children between 0-5 at every stage. If the
focus is on the child and supporting parents, that’s a good
guiding light. If we’re in a society that doesn’t value
children, we need to change society. Ready 4K is about how to
make this a public policy issue. The falsest argument we
encounter is, “That’s not government’s
responsibility, but parents’.” We agree it is
parents’ responsibility but we shouldn’t be ashamed to
say, “How do we want to view ourselves?” I heard a
story once about a conservative policy maker who became
radicalized, pro-child, pro-family because she heard someone once
say, “Well, we’ll just have to forfeit some of our
kids.” Is this the kind of reflection we want of our
society?
Kretzmann: I
don’t think that I can “define” the early
childhood community. We’re here. We have the challenge of a
divided community because of our different funding streams; there
isn’t a comprehensive universal system. I’m here today
because of where I work and my experience trying to implement
programs, and I have seen the magic of commitment and vision of
others as they put into place amazing programs. I can’t
claim to be that expert.
Nancy Johnson: This
panel would have been very different if it had been more diverse.
As an ally for families that are not represented, next year we
should have more diversity on the panel. In response to the
conversation about parent vs. state responsibility, I’m
reminded of ECFE in its early stages. The purpose of the program
was to connect new parents with their school. The dichotomy that
has grown over the years is very destructive. I feel that the
real policy issue is to discuss the choices and support that
families need to build the capacity of their children.
Odom: When we move
away from clear-cut medical and health indicators for children
into gray areas, we move into values. I think it is okay for us
to allow our values to influence what we think is important for
children, such as culturally appropriate services.
Audience Questions
Audience Member:
I’m going to try and force the dichotomy for a moment. A few
weeks back I gave testimony on the new academic standards being
proposed by Commissioner Yecke. My question to her was why there
weren’t more standards for developmental differences in the
over 600 proposed standards. I was told it is a matter of
philosophy and a matter of law, meaning the No Child Left Behind law. I believe that using only academic
standards for comparing schools makes the research easier because
of the uni-dimensional standards. The implication for preschool
is if you take an academic approach, Head Start and ECFE are no
longer necessary because only reading readiness is being
measured. It is more difficult to look at and measure social
adjustment, ethics, or decision-making. Parents become irrelevant
because of the focus on instructional methodology and
instruction. How do you approach the politics, dichotomy, and
philosophy of the administration?
Odom: There is
often a disconnect between what research tells us and the social
policy that exists. If a state only looks at students’
scores, even with the best instruction, they may not measure up
to a median level. The outcome is for children to do better, but
it may not be detectable because children already come in
performing very low. A pre-test score is the best indicator of a
post-test score. On the other side of the coin, I’m pleased
that there is an increased awareness of academic standards in
early childhood because we can look at predictors and better
prepare children for success — as long as it is done with
appropriate developmental practices.
Love: I am pleased
that there is a focus on academic predictors in early childhood.
For too long, the early childhood community has been too focused
on social/emotional outcomes and not worked with the academic
side, when we need a balance across the full spectrum of desired
outcomes. Head Start standards need to be based on child
outcomes, however, tools for doing this are more expensive and
difficult to perform. The best predictor of children’s
scores on a pre-test is the parent’s socio-economic status.
Kretzmann: Eighteen
hundred children in Minneapolis schools are expelled, and
it’s not because they don’t know their letters.
Nancy Johnson: We
need to increase our alliance with the business community because
they are looking for the soft skills that early childhood
programs promote: managing and getting along. We cannot lose the
social emotional element of preschool.
McConnell: It seems
there is relatively less agreement about what social/emotional
behaviors are appropriate, and these behaviors become culturally
entrenched.
Nancy Johnson: It
is important that we involve people from those cultures, and I
think our behavioral ideas are closer together than we think.
Kretzmann: Our
cultural values in terms of behavior are diverse and we
can’t ignore the issue.
Love: Cultural
differences are not the major reason we can’t agree on
social/emotional behavior but rather because we can’t
measure it as accurately or objectively as we’d like.
Odom: There are
evidence and scientifically-based curricula available. For
example, when we reviewed the literature on prosocial behavior,
we identified three dimensions of social competence:
self-regulation, prosocial behavior, and prevention of
anti-social behavior. We did find a preventative curriculum
developed by Carol Webster Stratton that has shown good effects.
It teaches children words for their emotions, how to stop before
they hit, and how to think about things.
Audience Member:
Where does ideology fit into practice and policy? There seems to
be a dichotomy in the schools. Either you operate from an
ideological point of view or a research-based point of view.
Otis: Convincing
research is helpful. It leaves people with their ideology but
challenges them to explain why they don’t want to use proven
methods. How we communicate the research is important. Ideology
cannot trump research —reason is the life of law. Being able
to make a case in public, you need to have research to back up
your decisions.
Odom: Beliefs do
affect research. Often a key variable is teacher buy-in. Ideology
is a huge factor and can stand in defiance of social policy.
Audience Member:
The 2000 Minnesota Household Child Care Study provided good
information about choices that parents are making about
childcare. Over 50% of families are using informal care and yet
most research is done in formal childcare centers. How do we as
researchers remember to look at the whole continuum of care? How
do we direct research at this population? How do we use that for
public engagement?
Kretzmann: In 2001,
our board made the decision to expand child development work to
wherever infants and toddlers are to be found.
Love: Current
research on kith and kin care is hampered by inappropriate
measurements and assessments. We need better ways of measurement.
Nancy Johnson: I
think there is great potential power of involving parents and
informal providers into the advocacy arena. We need to discover
what are the “real” ways that parents and providers get
information?
Closing Remarks
Dr. McConnell asked each panelist to
share some closing remarks on the future of research and policy.
Kretzmann: This has
been a hopeful day. We need to work on mobilizing people,
parents, childcare providers, and advocates. We need to employ
“nebbing” a way of networking through the Internet.
Nancy Johnson: Ready 4 K has a Web site. At the national level,
“Every Child Matters” provides information on
children’s issues. I am hopeful about leadership from
legislators, CEED’s leadership for advocacy and making
research accessible. I am also hopeful about the possibilities
for research and relationships with public policy leaders that
can be developed, especially in the off session. It is important
that we continue to have these conversations with family, work
mates, and in our everyday life.
Otis: I encourage
everyone to have a relationship with Ready 4 K as we continue to
grapple with systems change. Form relationship with legislators.
Talk to all your friends about what you care about. Connect with
a business person!
Odom: Minnesota has
a politically committed and active group. Continue with your
commitment to political activity. Think about evidence-based
practice and identify what practice you do and where it comes
from. Don’t shy away from values-based practices and go
beyond evidence. Outcome-based practice can help kids become
prepared.
Love: Research is
not as helpful as we would like it to be. The research community
has an obligation to find the instruments that meet the vision of
those in the room and around child policy.
This article was authored and edited by Mary
Nienow.
Resources
CEED Web site: http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed/
Early Childhood Research Institute
on Measuring Growth and Development:
Art Rolnick’s Article, Early
Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public
Return: available on the CEED Web site or at http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/fedgaz/03-03/earlychild.cfm
University of Minnesota, President
Robert Bruininks’ Children’s Initiative: http://www1.umn.edu/pres/cyf.html
Ready 4 K: http://www.ready4k.org
Every Child Matters: http://www.everychildmatters.org/
Early Head Start Information Kit: http://www.headstartinfo.org/infocenter/ehs_tkit1.htm
Mary McEvoy Endowment for Children
Representative Nora Slawik,
Representative Jim Rhodes, and Senator LeRoy Stumpf announced the
introduction of legislation that will establish the Mary McEvoy
Endowment for Young Children which would move the early childhood
agenda forward.
The bill does three things —
- Puts a constitutional
amendment onto the 2004 ballot, which shall
read:
Shall the Minnesota Constitution
be amended to create a permanent endowment fund, entitled the
Mary McEvoy Endowment Fund for Young Children, to enhance the
development and education of young children through age five to
ensure the long-term security of the state’s workforce and
economy?”
- Gets the conversation
about early childhood started again by making
every Minnesotan think about young children when they go
to vote.
- Enhances programs like
ECFE and Head Start and will not replace state
funds allocated for these programs.
This legislation will serve as a
national model for what an endowment for young children can look
like! For more information or to help with the endowment effort,
please contact Representative Nora Slawik by email at rep.nora.slawik@house.mn.
Excerpts from the Luncheon Address by University of Minnesota
President, Robert Bruininks
A great soul
serves everyone all the time,
it brings us together again and
again.
— Maya Angelou
"Mary McEvoy was this great soul, she
believed deeply in linking research, practice, and policy. She
was relentless in pursuing the answers to, 'What do we know and how can we apply
it to the welfare of young children?'"
My presidential theme, Advancing
Knowledge — A Partner for the Public Good, truly
captures the spirit of Mary and her work. Therefore, I will be
launching the President’s Initiative on Children,
Youth, and Families."
Programming under this initiative
will include —
UConnects
UConnects seeks to connect community
youth with the University by providing tickets and access to
University educational programs, cultural activities, and
athletic events. The target audience is students enrolled in
formal mentorship programs. The mentors will not only accompany
the youths to the University events, but it is hoped that they
will prepare the students for their visits and help them to
process and interpret their experiences afterward. Through
UConnects, the University hopes to play an important role in the
lives of youth who are currently offered the fewest educational
and cultural experiences. [Also see Minnesota Children's Summit 2004: Staying
Strong Through Challenge and Change.]
The President Goes
to School
The President will visit Minnesota
schools, childcare centers, after-school programs, and community
centers during community visits to show his continued commitment
to children and their concerns.
President’s
Calendar
Centers and departments across the
University of Minnesota regularly hold meetings and other events
to discuss challenges facing children, youth, and families. This
information is vital to practitioners, community leaders, and
others who care about the well being of children and families,
but often the public is unaware of the University’s
offerings. In order to remedy this, a President’s
University-wide Calendar of Children, Youth and Family events will be established on the Office of the
President’s Web site.
University-sponsored events that
address substantive children, youth and family issues of interest
to both the public and to University faculty and researchers, and
that are open to the public, will be included on the calendar.
Centers or departments with events listed on the President’s
Calendar will also be encouraged to work with the University News
Service to promote their events as part of the President’s
Initiative, and highlights from the events can be posted on the
President’s website. A further set of criteria and a form to
request inclusion on the calendar can be found on the
President’s website.
Capitol
Conversations
The participation of
Minnesota’s policymakers in the collaboration between the
University and the community is vital. On a daily basis,
lawmakers make decisions that impact Minnesota’s children,
youth and families; they need access to the ever-growing research
on children’s issues in order to make the best possible
decisions. The Capitol Conversations were designed to bring
together policymakers and University faculty in a series of
breakfast conversations for an ongoing dialogue on children,
youth, and family issues. The first three conversations were held
January 15, 21, and 30, 2003. The desired outcomes are for
University faculty and legislators to establish a two-way
conversation, build trust, and discover ways to generate and use
policy-relevant research.
The first three conversations
focused on —
- Identifying ways for
policymakers and faculty to communicate more effectively
with each other;
- Evaluating the effectiveness of
policies, strategies, and programs; and
- Decision-making when budgets
need to be cut.
You can count on the University of
Minnesota to be there as a partner for the public good.
More information can be obtained on
the President’s Web site at http://www1.umn.edu/pres/cyf.html
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Fall 2003,
Volume 30, Issue 2
