Building Preschool Accountability Systems: Guidelines Resulting from a National Study

Abstract

Results are reported from a national validation survey of early childhood and early childhood special education professionals and family members related to guidelines for implementing accountability systems at the preschool level. Of the 47 statements included on the survey, 43 were validated by 75% or more of the 299 respondents. Specific implications for state and local programs involved in developing or refining accountability processes are presented in the areas of standards, assessment, and general accountability system design.

Using Assessment to Improve the Effectiveness of Early Childhood Education

“…At least 42 states now provide some form of taxpayer funded ECE for all children, not just those who are considered at-risk (Bailey, 2001;Rous et al, 2005). With this expansion of publicly funded programs, policy makers and school districts likely will seek to provide services that are needed and desired within individual communities in a cost-effective manner.…”

“…Since passage of The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 (PL 107-110) accountability has become a main focus of assessment in K-12 education. Given the current emphasis on promoting school readiness on both the state and national level (Kagan, 2003;Meisels, 1998;Rous et al, 2005; Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2000) it is not surprising that pressure is increasing on preschools and early childhood educators to document the effectiveness of their methods through assessments such as the National Reporting System (NRS) for Head Start (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006b).…”

“…First, assessment can be used to hold teachers, school districts, and ECE/ECSE programs accountable for providing effective interventions (Kagan, 2003;Rous, Lobianco, Moffett, & Lund, 2005). Since passage of The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 (PL 107-110) accountability has become a main focus of assessment in K-12 education.…”

Weaknesses and strengths in assessing early childhood programmes: an assessment of an early childhood Spanish trilingual programme in two‐ to three‐year‐old children

“…An authentic approach to the assessment of educational programmes for very young children ought to meet many of the defining purposes of such assessment: (1) to identify children who are educationally at-risk, and in need of specialised intervention and educational services (Bagnato, 2005;Macy, Bricker, & Squires, 2005); (2) to provide information on child learning and progress; (3) to evaluate trends in service utilisation, provision and quality for policymakers and planners (Kagan, 2003); and (4) to foment accountability in effective assessment provision (Rous, Lobianco, Moffett, & Lund, 2005).…”

Field perceptions of the Vision Initiative for Children's preschool vision screening training model

“…To assess data entry reliability, an accuracy technique was implemented (Rous, Lobianco, Moffett, & Lund, 2005). In that technique, 15% (n = 7) of the 47 participants were randomly selected through the random selection function of SPSS ® 11.0 for Windows Student Version.…”