This literature review aims to understand who is and is not being served by Head Start among families experiencing adversity; the range of recruitment, selection, enrollment, and retention (RSER) strategies that programs use with families experiencing adversity; the factors that shape the use of RSER strategies; and the effectiveness of specific…

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low income get ready to succeed in school. It does this by working to promote their early learning and health and their families' well-being. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) provides national information about Head Start programs and…

Partnerships between Early Head Start (EHS) programs and child care providers aim to increase access to high quality, comprehensive services that meet the needs of infants and toddlers from families with low incomes. Quality in early care and education matters. In prior research, high quality early care and education was associated with better…

In spring 2020, in response to the COVID-19 (for coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, many early care and education centers, including Head Start centers, closed their physical buildings and changed their operations to virtual. Because of health and safety restrictions, OPRE was unable to directly assess children's skills in spring 2020 for the…

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low incomes get ready to succeed in school. It does this by working to promote their early learning and health and their families' well-being. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) provides national information about Head Start programs and…

The goals of the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ECE-ICHQ) are to (1) produce technically sound, systematic measures of the implementation and costs of education and care in center-based settings that serve children from birth to age 5; (2) produce implementation and cost measures to examine the variation in ECE…

The 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) is funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families. The project team is led by NORC at the University of Chicago. The 2019 NSECE is comprised of four integrated, nationally representative surveys which include: (1)…

Adults who provide care and education to young children have a great responsibility, as children's early environment and relationships have profound and lifelong effects. The Early Head Start conceptual framework recognizes that the characteristics of teachers and home visitors who deliver core Early Head Start services to children and families…

Head Start is an essential part of the programs and funding streams that provide early care and education (ECE) services to young children in the U.S. Head Start focuses on supporting children and families with low incomes, but also contributes to the broader effort to expand access to high quality ECE for all young children. Programs and…

The early care and education (ECE) field is still in the early stages of building the infrastructure it needs to attract, support, and sustain strong leadership (Austin, 2014; Goffin & Daga, 2017; Kirby et al., 2021; Pacchiano et al., 2016). This brief presents the findings from a review of research on ECE leadership development initiatives…

Existing research suggests that some transition activities (e.g., visits to kindergarten classrooms, home visits by teachers, sharing information with families) initiated by early care and education (ECE) settings, kindergarten teachers and elementary schools, and/or families can have small, positive associations with children's outcomes in…

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs uniquely support the frequent transitions, including the transition to kindergarten, that children in migrant and seasonal families may experience. Lessons learned from how MSHS programs support transitions may have implications for MSHS and other federally funded early care and education (ECE)…

The analyses presented here are part of a larger project, "Understanding Children's Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten" (HS2K), a joint research venture between NORC at the University of Chicago, Child Trends, and the National P-3 Center at University of Colorado Denver, with funding from the U.S. Administration for Children and…

Research has found that children who attend Head Start for more than one year tend to score higher on cognitive skills at the end of pre-K or at kindergarten entry than children who attend for one year or less (Lee 2011; Wen et al. 2012b; Xue et al. 2016). Although attending Head Start for more years is linked with higher cognitive scores,…

Half of all infants and toddlers receive care in nonparental settings, such as centers and family child care (FCC) homes. On average, infants and toddlers spend more hours per week in care than preschoolers do. Yet infant-toddler care has been identified as lower quality than care for older children, suggesting that professional development (PD)…