Head Start, the largest federally funded preschool program, provides comprehensive services to economically disadvantaged children and their families so that children can enter kindergarten ready to succeed in school. Performance standards include requirements for the intensity and quality of a...

This volume provides a compendium of measures that could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of Head Start enhancements. The focus is on child outcome measures, although measures pertaining to intermediate outcomes related both to changes in the program and changes in the home are included....

Finds that, a year or more after enrolling in the program, 2-year-olds perform significantly better on a range of measures of cognitive, language, and social-emotional development, when compared with a randomly assigned control group. EHS families are also more likely to attend school or job...

The final report to Congress presents complete findings from our seven-year national evaluation of Early Head Start. The findings show that the program promotes learning and the parenting that supports it within the first three years of life. Participating children perform significantly better...

Finds that, a year or more after enrolling in the program, 2-year-olds perform significantly better on a range of measures of cognitive, language, and social-emotional development, when compared with a randomly assigned control group. EHS families are also more likely to attend school or job...

Mathematica collected data on child care settings used by program and control group families when children were 14, 24, and 36 months of age. Findings demonstrate the important role programs played: Early Head Start families were receiving not only more child care but substantially more...

This report highlights information from a survey of Early Head Start programs that examined management structures and program services nationally. The report describes program approaches to service delivery, management and staffing, and partnerships. It also examines the characteristics of...