HIGHLIGHTS
- New Profit and MA EEC supported early education and care program leaders.
- Selected Early Childhood Support Organizations (ECSOs) partnered with local licensed providers.
- New Profit and EEC funded the initial years of the initiative, and Abt led the implementation and impact evaluation.
PROJECT
MA ECSO II
The Challenge
Many initiatives attempting to improve the quality of early education and care settings typically focus on teacher practice versus organizational capacity. The Massachusetts Early Childhood Support Organization initiative (MA ECSO) seeks to improve the quality of educational programs by helping leaders provide job-embedded professional learning opportunities for their educators and use continuous quality improvement to inform and advance their programs. Initially a public-private partnership that included New Profit, a venture philanthropy organization, and the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), supported by EEC moving forward, provides professional supports, resources, and financial incentives to programs with the goal of empowering leadership to support early educators in their provision of high-quality instruction that promotes positive outcomes for young children.
The Approach
Abt Global evaluated the implementation and impact of this innovative statewide initiative through a series of informative staff surveys, interviews, and classroom observations in ECSO and comparison programs. Additional insights were gleaned from the consolidation of implementation supports data that we collected and displayed in an interactive online dashboard for key staff to use and the facilitation of fidelity measurement and goal-setting to aid in benchmarking implementation data.
The Results
The initiative started as a pilot to facilitate EEC’s understanding of how a program focused heavily on leadership-focused support could work. Over time, it has grown into a whole-site quality improvement effort. So far, ECSO has supported five cohorts of programs, reaching 135 licensed community-based providers. Abt’s evaluation found improvements over time in ECSO programs, often exceeding those in comparison programs, on important outcomes. The initiative boosted leader confidence, improved leadership practices, increased educator receipt of support, and encouraged the use of curricula and assessment tools during its early years. It also positively influenced some specific interactional quality behaviors in pre-k classrooms.
Related Resources:
- Massachusetts Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) Final Evaluation Report
- Massachusetts Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) Year 4 Annual Evaluation Report
- Massachusetts Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) Year 3 Annual Evaluation Report
- Massachusetts Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) Year 2 Annual Implementation Evaluation Report