EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION WORK GROUP
Wednesday March 9, 2005
2:00-3:30pm

NOTES

Next Meeting: Not decided yet. An email will be sent around in the next week to set up a time for the next meeting.

Decisions:

• Review possible ECE data available.
• Establish some type of hierarchy of data needs.

Assignments:

• Urban Strategies will organize census data and share it to get feedback from workgroup.
• Priyah will provide live birth data when it arrives.
• Possible to get Child Care Planning Council published reports from Angie?

I. Preliminaries

Decisions:  

• Go over indicators and run through what was posted last month.
• Think of indicators within context of planning, in addition to within the context of Casey.
• There may be different data demands for the school district and city.
• Agree to go over work plan, summary sheets, and gap analysis.
• Comment that a major problem is that much ECE data does not exist.  

Assignments:  

• The Casey Foundation has a set of indicators, one of which is kindergarten readiness.
• Teachers at preschool conduct a readiness evaluation twice a year. This evaluation provides some type of indicator of readiness.
• The problem is that there is no standard way to see if kids are ready for kindergarten.
• Some data available by OUSD on kids entering the system. Kids are assessed and the data is available somewhere (did not catch all details – see Jane).
• Teachers received a fall data roster about incoming students – this roster may be helpful.

II. Review of Indicators

Decisions:  

• Casey is looking for a “ready or not” type of indicator, while the data available through the Open Court Assessment may not be so concrete.
• Casey is also looking for specific “ready or not” indicators based on reading/writing skills.
• The Census has available a 3-5 variable on pre-school enrollment, but for some reason Casey wants information on 3-4 pre-school enrollment.
• The Child Care Planning Council is a potential data source. Head Start may also have some information.
• Many of the LSA programs are full, but there are potential closures of some preschool and daycare facilities.
• Some preliminary data (don’t know source) shows pre-school attendance in the LSA is higher than in the district – the goal could be to maintain comparability.
• To measure reading performance, a need to look at websites to see what is available.
• Should we measure third grade reading levels or something different?
• Is there a standard to measure reading performance?
• Now that all Casey indicators reviewed, time to discuss other indicators we as a group would like to have. 

Assignments:  

• Need to break out the 0-5 years age bracket to see the duration and frequency that a child is read to. Hopefully, this revision will be incorporated into the next survey.
• In regard to reading, math, and social readiness, how do we measure this? Where are the numbers?
• Are there other indicators where data is available? For example, what is the waiting list for those wanting childcare access? How many are waiting for pre-school access? How many are waiting for childcare access?
• There’s a need to prioritize what we want and the possibility of getting it. Also, it’s important to put into context what is realistic – reference to the Bruner paper.
• Review of Heddy’s material.Urban Strategies has most of the demographic data, which is normally compared to the city and county.
• Live birth data would be helpful. Priya could be able to provide the data when she get’s it.
• Problem with census data is that it doesn’t capture the immigrant population.
• Junious will send over a packet of Cross Site Survey items for review.
• In regard to “Childcare Pattern” data, it may be difficult to find. Might need to talk around certain communities to get a sense of what’s going on, or go to a program to get answers.
• In regard to “Attendance/Achievement,” there’s an interest to know how many people are not in programs because they either didn’t qualify or do not know how to get involved.
• In regard to “Parenting Practices,” many questions are in a more qualitative format. There’s an interest in father involvement programs. Maybe some Casey dollars from the “father” portfolio could be used for potential pilot programs.
• Special Needs : several teachers noted need for support for special needs. Maybe try to estimate the number of children 0-5 with special needs.
• Sometimes difficult to define special needs. Might need to break out what exactly special needs represents like % autistic, % health conditions, etc…
• Need to look through the Bruner article to see what we want/need. Look to see what’s available at the Oakland city level of the Bruner’s data points.
  

III. Assignments/Next Steps

Decisions:

• Noted the InfoAlameda release soon and the availability of InfoOakland.
• Most of the census data available on InfoOakland.
• Do we have Safe Passages data about domestic violence and kids 0-5 present?
• ECE data is falling off the radar screen in general. Maybe a need to hire a consultant to do a scan of data available. Need to reinforce value of ECE.
• A suggestion to connect InfoOakland with OUSD data.

Assignments:

• Urban Strategies will organize census data and share it to get feedback from workgroup.
• Priyah will provide live birth data when it arrives.
• Possible to get Child Care Planning Council published reports from Angie?
• Must be cognizant of flow of money. Given the combination of needs, what are the priorities?
• A need to find data on investment into ECE.
• Potential meeting with Rory at First Five to look into data sharing.