Using Early Childhood Data to Help Boston Close the Gap

by Jill Anderson

Posted: October 3, 2007

Christina Weiland Growing up in a poor community in West Virginia, doctoral student Christina Weiland witnessed firsthand some of the disparities in education which fuel her interest in the achievement gap, especially how it affects children long before they enter kindergarten. Now entering her second year as a doctoral student, Weiland didn’t waste any time getting started on researching early childhood education. “High-quality early childhood education has proven time and time again to be a very effective way to address this gap, not to mention [being] cost effective and socially just,” she says.

After her first year at HGSE, Weiland’s focus on early childhood education increased. Professor Hiro Yoshikawa introduced the possibility of working with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) on early childhood issues. After receiving a summer public policy fellowship from the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, Weiland found herself working with BPS in developing its early childhood education program. The Rappaport Institute, based at the Kennedy School of Government, awards fellowships to 12 students each summer to work in fields like health care reform, economic development, affordable housing, and special education.

Weiland’s previous experience working in educational research at Abt Associates’ Education and Family Support Department and as a charter school teacher was a natural fit for what BPS Director of Early Childhood Department Jason Sachs needed.

For two months, Weiland analyzed demographic information, teacher applicant data, student mobility, and school choice data for students aged 3 to 5 years old. This is a first step to better understand the population of children served by BPS Early Childhood, she says. In addition, Weiland began to explore how to conduct longitudinal studies of BPS’s early childhood programs, which includes the best instruments to use, what resources to draw upon, and how to create the best research designs for the studies. This information will be vital to the development of a tracking system for the early childhood program.

“Boston is doing its best to use data to drive decisions and program quality,” she says. “The challenge in early childhood education in Boston Public Schools is that until the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Tests in the third grade, there is no systematic data on children or a way to examine what leads a child to succeed or not.”

Weiland says that it may be difficult to track these students as part of an effort to beef up Boston’s early childhood program — as Sachs hopes to do — due to the large number of students going in and out of the school system. “It’s a huge population…and we’re looking at how to meet their needs and how to understand their education experience up to this point,” she says.

Even though Weiland’s fellowship has drawn to a close, she plans to continue working with Sachs and BPS. In addition, this summer fellowship seems to have planted a seed for her future dissertation research. “There are a lot of unanswered questions in the field. We haven’t yet answered what works for whom and under what conditions, particularly on a large scale,” she says. “Given the increasing support for universal pre-k nationally, I think good data will go a long way toward answering these questions and informing decisions around how to spend scarce resources in ways that are effective for at-risk young children.”


Events Features & Releases e-Newsletters Ed. Magazine HGSE in the Media Webcasts Harvard Education Publishing Group	News Features & Releases Using Early Childhood Data to Help Boston Close the Gap by Jill Anderson Posted: October 3, 2007 Growing up in a poor community in West Virginia, doctoral student Christina Weiland witnessed firsthand some of the disparities in education which fuel her interest in the achievement gap, especially how it affects children long before they enter kindergarten. Now entering her second year as a doctoral student, Weiland didn’t waste any time getting started on researching early childhood education. “High-quality early childhood education has proven time and time again to be a very effective way to address this gap, not to mention [being] cost effective and socially just,” she says. After her first year at HGSE, Weiland’s focus on early childhood education increased. Professor Hiro Yoshikawa introduced the possibility of working with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) on early childhood issues. After receiving a summer public policy fellowship from the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, Weiland found herself working with BPS in developing its early childhood education program. The Rappaport Institute, based at the Kennedy School of Government, awards fellowships to 12 students each summer to work in fields like health care reform, economic development, affordable housing, and special education. Weiland’s previous experience working in educational research at Abt Associates’ Education and Family Support Department and as a charter school teacher was a natural fit for what BPS Director of Early Childhood Department Jason Sachs needed. For two months, Weiland analyzed demographic information, teacher applicant data, student mobility, and school choice data for students aged 3 to 5 years old. This is a first step to better understand the population of children served by BPS Early Childhood, she says. In addition, Weiland began to explore how to conduct longitudinal studies of BPS’s early childhood programs, which includes the best instruments to use, what resources to draw upon, and how to create the best research designs for the studies. This information will be vital to the development of a tracking system for the early childhood program. “Boston is doing its best to use data to drive decisions and program quality,” she says. “The challenge in early childhood education in Boston Public Schools is that until the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Tests in the third grade, there is no systematic data on children or a way to examine what leads a child to succeed or not.” Weiland says that it may be difficult to track these students as part of an effort to beef up Boston’s early childhood program — as Sachs hopes to do — due to the large number of students going in and out of the school system. “It’s a huge population…and we’re looking at how to meet their needs and how to understand their education experience up to this point,” she says. Even though Weiland’s fellowship has drawn to a close, she plans to continue working with Sachs and BPS. In addition, this summer fellowship seems to have planted a seed for her future dissertation research. “There are a lot of unanswered questions in the field. We haven’t yet answered what works for whom and under what conditions, particularly on a large scale,” she says. “Given the increasing support for universal pre-k nationally, I think good data will go a long way toward answering these questions and informing decisions around how to spend scarce resources in ways that are effective for at-risk young children.”

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