Researchers have posited that children generally learn to read in environments that are trusting, comfortable, and offer small group or one-to-one adult support, all of which are characteristics of a high quality early childhood education program. This evaluation research study examines the Pre-Kindergarten Incentive Program, an early childhood demonstration program in Washington, DC designed to study several urban community-based sites. The authors facilitate a discourse on how all early childhood education programs can become high quality programs through standardized observations, evaluations, and constructive feedback. The article describes the demonstration program, highlights general findings from standardized classroom observations, discusses areas needing improvement, and presents strategies for addressing areas of challenge. It will reveal to early childhood educators how evaluation findings can improve teaching and learning techniques and environments in early childhood programs. The goal is to promote overall improvement in reading, reasoning, and literacy for children enrolled in early childhood programs and thereby better prepare them for kindergarten.

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Research on the evaluation of early childhood programs focuses mainly on its outcomes rather than its process with often little attention given to the role that feedback to teachers in pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs plays in the larger cycle of the evaluation process. This article provides a case example of a multiyear evaluation of community-based pre-k programs serving about 360 three- and four-year old children over a 5-year period in the District of Columbia. The Closing the Loop Evaluation Model proposed represents a responsive evaluation approach that illustrates the interconnected interactions between teacher feedback during the evaluation process and two supporting evaluation methodologies that emphasize social justice and utility. Findings from the case example highlight the responsive evaluation approach, feedback process, and ensuing conceptual and instrumental changes that occurred among stakeholders from whole-group feedback to small-group “report card” meetings with add-ons such as technical assistance, teacher-generated action plans, and teacher follow-up and feedback to close the evaluation loop. The authors discuss lessons learned about the evaluation process from the case example around aspects of feedback, including timing, audience, and function. Findings highlight the importance of feedback being timely and prompt, high quality in focus and content, non-punitive, collaborative, concise, and useful. The authors conclude that an evaluation process that includes teacher feedback, couched in social justice and utility, can have positive outcomes for all stakeholders and will likely lead to higher quality early childhood education programs.