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Mathematica conducted a field test for the Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ICHQ) Project. The goals of the field test were to:

• Refine implementation measures to further improve and establish their psychometric properties
• Refine cost measures to identify costs associated with each key function and across ages of children
• Test the associations between implementation, cost, and quality measures.

The research team recruited a purposive sample of 80 centers in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, and Pennsylvania to participate in the field test and conducted data collection from April to December 2021. Implementation interviews (DS2) were conducted by phone with either one or a few key staff who knew the most about the center's operations and educational program. Cost data (DS5) were collected in an electronic spreadsheet by staff who knew the most about each center's finances. A web-based time-use survey collected information about how all teaching staff and select center administrators spend their time in activities related to providing early care and education services (DS3). The research team also conducted a center engagement interview to gather information about center characteristics (DS1), and an additional survey of all teaching staff (the same respondents identified for the time-use survey) to assess their perceptions of center practices and the work environment (DS4).

The MET project is based on two premises: First, a teacher's evaluation should depend to a significant extent on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways -- through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding.

Panoramic digital video of classroom sessions were taken of participating teachers and students, teachers submitted commentary on their lessons (e.g., specifying the learning objective) and then trained raters scored the lesson based on classroom observation protocols using the following five observation protocols:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), developed by Robert Pianta, University of Virginia
• Framework for Teaching (FFT), developed by Charlotte Danielson
• Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), developed by Heather Hill, Harvard University, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan
• Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO), developed by Pam Grossman, Stanford University
• Quality Science Teaching (QST) Instrument, developed by Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University

A subset of the videos also are being scored using an observational protocol developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and using the UTeach Observational Protocol (UTOP), developed by the UTeach Preparation Program.

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following 6, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

The Item-Level Observational Scores Release

This release consists of data files for the five observational protocols listed (CLASS, FFT, MQI, PLATO, and QST) and the UTOP subset. Also included are rater comment files explaining rater scores on the CLASS instrument and master coded scores for the CLASS, FFT, PLATO, MQI and QST observational measures.

The Measures of Effective Teaching Project (MET)

The MET project is based on two premises: First, a teacher's evaluation should depend to a significant extent on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways -- through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding. The supplemental assessments used were Stanford 9 Open-Ended Reading Assessment in grades 4 through 8, Balanced Assessment in Mathematics (BAM) in grades 4 through 8, and the ACT QualityCore series for Algebra I, English 9, and Biology.

Panoramic digital video of classroom sessions were taken of participating teachers and students, teachers submitted commentary on their lessons (e.g., specifying the learning objective) and then trained raters scored the lesson based on classroom observation protocols using the following five observation protocols:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), developed by Robert Pianta, University of Virginia
• Framework for Teaching, developed by Charlotte Danielson
• Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), developed by Heather Hill, Harvard University, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan
• Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO), developed by Pam Grossman, Stanford University
• Quality Science Teaching (QST) Instrument, developed by Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University

A subset of the videos also are being scored using an observational protocol developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and using the UTeach Observational Protocol (UTOP), developed by the UTeach Preparation Program.

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following six, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

The Study Information Release

Contained in this release are a comprehensive user guide, an observation measures report, a randomization file, a video information file, a subject ID file, a teacher demographics file, a student global ID crosswalk file, and a teacher global ID crosswalk file.

• User Guide - The user guide provides information on all data releases included in the MET longitudinal database. The report describes: (1) the educational research and policy context for the study; (2) research questions addressed by MET researchers; (3) the core study design and sub-studies; (4) the realized study sample; (5) additional information on study instruments and derived measures; and (6) the data files available for secondary analysis.
• Observation Measures Report - This report includes a description of the scoring design used for each phase and each year of the video observation measures and final reports of the scoring carried out for each measure.
• Randomization File - Year two of the MET study included a process for randomizing the classroom to which teachers were assigned. Information found in the randomization file includes district, school, section and student IDs, teacher IDs for the teacher a student was randomly assigned to, the actual teacher the student was recorded as having in May of that year, and the actual teacher the student was recorded as having in October of that year. Also included in the file are variables that indicate the grade of the student, their randomization block and exchange group and section each student was assigned to.
• Video Information File - This file contains descriptive information about the videos captured for the MET project. Variables found in the file include the ID of the video, as well as IDs for the district, school, teacher and section related to each video, the subject, grade, and year of the video and whether the file is available for users to view.
• Subject ID Crosswalk - This file contains only ID variables and is included to describe the associations between districts, schools, teachers, sections and students.
• Teacher Demographics File - This file contains descriptive information about the teachers in the MET project. Variables found in the file include the ID of the teacher, as well as IDs for the district, gender, race, years experience, and level of education.
• Student Global ID Crosswalk File - Students were given new and unique IDs in each year of data collection. This file matches those Student IDs across the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14 academic years.
• Teacher Global ID Crosswalk File - Teachers were given new and unique IDs in each year of data collection. This file matchers those Teachers IDs across the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14 academic years.

The National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten examined the pre-kindergarten programs of six states: California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Georgia. For this study, pre-kindergarten (pre-k) included center-based programs for four-year-olds that are fully or partially funded by state education agencies and that are operated in schools or under the direction of state and local education agencies.

The study had two primary purposes:

1. To describe the variations of experiences for children in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs in school-related settings (public schools and state-funded pre-k classrooms in community-based settings), and

2. To examine the relationships between variations in pre-kindergarten/kindergarten experiences and children's outcomes in early elementary school.

The study addressed six primary groups of research questions:

1. What is the nature and distribution of education and experience of teachers and teacher assistants in pre-k public school programs?

2. What is the nature and distribution of global quality and specific practices in key areas such as literacy, math, and teacher-child relationships in a diverse sample of pre-k public school programs for four-year-olds as well as in a similarly diverse sample of kindergarten classes?

3. How do quality and practices vary as a result of child and teacher characteristics (e.g., child gender, race, home language, family income, and teacher's years of education) and classroom, program, community, and state structural variables (e.g., teacher-child ratio, funding base of the program, teacher salary, and degree of state regulation) for children with different demographic characteristics (e.g., race, gender, home language, and family income)?

4. Do quality and practice vary in relation to combinations of these variables? For example, are quality and practice a function of family poverty and teacher pay or education?

5. Can children's outcomes at the end of their pre-kindergarten year be predicted by the children's experiences in pre-k programs? Are the various dimensions of quality and/or practice differentially related to outcomes? Are these relationships constant across a population of children with different characteristics (e.g., race, gender, home language, and family income)?

6. Do pre-kindergarten program quality and practices predict children's transitions to kindergarten and children's skills at the end of the kindergarten year? Are these transitions moderated by children's characteristics, like race, gender, and family income?

The six states in the study were selected based on the significant amount of resources they have committed to pre-k initiatives. States were also selected to maximize the diversity in geography, program settings (public school or community), program intensity (full day versus part day), and educational requirements for teachers. Within each state, a random sample of 40 centers/schools was selected. One classroom in each center/school was selected at random for observation, and four children in each classroom were selected for individual assessment. The children were followed from the beginning of pre-k through the end of kindergarten. In five of the six states, families were also visited in their homes.

1. Classroom Services and Specific Instructional Practices

   Within the 40 classrooms in each participating state, carefully trained data collectors conducted classroom observations twice each year, while additional surveys were used to gather information from administrators/principals, teachers, and parents. Data were gathered on program services, (e.g., healthcare, meals, and transportation), program curriculum, teacher training and education, teachers' opinions of child development, and their instructional practices on subjects such as language, literacy, mathematics concepts, and social-emotional competencies. Data were also collected as to what types of steps were taken to aid children in their transitions from pre-k to kindergarten.

2. Children

   Within each participating pre-k classroom, four randomly selected children were assessed using a battery of individual instruments to measure language, literacy, mathematics, and related concept development, as well as social competence. A panel of expert reviewers aided the researchers in selecting a variety of standardized and nonstandardized assessments. The pre-k child assessments were conducted in the fall and spring of 2001-2002. The same children were followed into kindergarten and assessed in the fall and spring of 2002-2003 to examine whether specific practices employed by pre-k teachers made a difference in their transitions to kindergarten.

3. Families

   In individual home-based interviews, information on socio-economic, socio-cultural, and familial contexts were obtained through open-ended questions, structured ratings, and videotaped parent-child interactions. Specifically, parents were asked about (1) family life as it relates to socio-economic status and socio-cultural environment, (2) family educational practices and beliefs about the comparative roles of school and family in educating children, (3) the nature and quality of the home-school relationship, and (4) their own ratings of their children's psychological development and social competence.

Demographic information collected includes race, gender, family income, and mother's education level.

The above information pertains to the Main Child Level Public-Use Version and the Main Child Level Restricted-Use Version. From these main datasets, subsets were created at the classroom level for Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K Classroom Level Public-Use Version and Pre-K Classroom Level Restricted-Use Version) and for Kindergarten (Kindergarten Classroom Level Public-Use Version and Kindergarten Classroom Level Restricted-Use Version).

The Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS) is a national longitudinal project initiated by Academia Sinica and jointly funded by Ministry of Education, the National Science Council, and Academia Sinica. The objective of TEPS is to stimulate more basic research in the fields of education, sociology, economics, and psychology by employing large scale panel data on representative samples of students, and their parents, teachers, and school administrators. In a nutshell, TEPS has five distinguishing features: (1) Theory driven: The focus is on the skills, behavioral, values, and psychological consequences of schooling institutions and family environments of students. Factors that are found in the literature to affect students' learning outcomes are all included. Specifically speaking, an AOE model of learning outcomes, representing learning capabilities (Ability), learning opportunities (Opportunity), and the amount of effort made by the students (Effort), serves as a guiding framework for questionnaire development. Ability and effort are more on students themselves while opportunities covers family, teachers, and school environment, peers, and so forth.

(2) Student centered and multidimensional and multi-levels: Central to the project were questionnaire surveys of students. The data collection extends to cover the most influential actors in their learning environment: parents, teachers, and schools. It covered nested multiple levels of data - individual students, classes, and schools, etc.

(3) Panel surveys covering multiple programs and multiple cohorts: Students in junior high (G7 to G9), senior high (G10 to G12), vocational (G10 to G12), and junior college (G10 to G14) programs were administered for data collection. All students were followed at least twice. A portion of them were followed four times at G7, G9, G11, and G12. In light of the ongoing transformation of the Taiwanese educational system in 1990s, the project started with two cohorts of approximately 40,000 students, making it possible to employ a quasi-experimental design in future analysis.

(4) National representative samples of the students: Students under data collection were representative samples of the 1984/85 and 1988/89 birth cohorts. Weighting is provided according to the probabilistic sampling design.

(5) Public goods: Data are made available to the public as soon as the data collection and data cleaning is completed, thereby providing an important resource for both academic and policy research.

The MET project is based on two premises: First, a teacher's evaluation should depend to a significant extent on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways -- through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding. The supplemental assessments used were:

• Stanford 9 (SAT 9) Open-Ended Reading Assessment in grades 4 through 8
• Balanced Assessment in Mathematics (BAM) in grades 4 through 8
• ACT QualityCore series for Algebra I, English 9, and Biology (ACT)

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following 6, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

The Item-Level Supplemental Test Files release consists of data files for the three supplemental assessments (SAT 9, BAM, and ACT).

The MET project is based on two premises: First, a teacher's evaluation should depend to a significant extent on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways--through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding. The supplemental assessments used were Stanford 9 Open-Ended Reading Assessment in grades 4 through 8, Balanced Assessment in Mathematics (BAM) in grades 4 through 8, and the ACT QualityCore series for Algebra I, English 9, and Biology.

Panoramic digital video of classroom sessions were taken of participating teachers and students, teachers submitted commentary on their lessons (e.g., specifying the learning objective) and then trained raters scored the lesson based on classroom observation protocols using the following five observation protocols:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), developed by Robert Pianta, University of Virginia

• Framework for Teaching, developed by Charlotte Danielson

• Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), developed by Heather Hill, Harvard University, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan

• Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO), developed by Pam Grossman, Stanford University

• Quality Science Teaching (QST) Instrument, developed by Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University

A subset of the videos also are being scored using an observational protocol developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS)

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following six, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

The MET project is based on two premises: First, a teacher's evaluation should depend to a significant extent on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways -- through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding. The supplemental assessments used were Stanford 9 Open-Ended Reading Assessment in grades 4 through 8, Balanced Assessment in Mathematics (BAM) in grades 4 through 8, and the ACT QualityCore series for Algebra I, English 9, and Biology.

Panoramic digital video of classroom sessions were taken of participating teachers and students, teachers submitted commentary on their lessons (e.g., specifying the learning objective) and then trained raters scored the lesson based on classroom observation protocols using the following five observation protocols:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), developed by Robert Pianta, University of Virginia

• Framework for Teaching (FFT), developed by Charlotte Danielson

• Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), developed by Heather Hill, Harvard University, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan

• Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO), developed by Pam Grossman, Stanford University

• Quality Science Teaching (QST) Instrument, developed by Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University

A subset of the videos also are being scored using an observational protocol developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and using the UTeach Observational Protocol (UTOP), developed by the UTeach Preparation Program.

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following six, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

The Item-Level Survey Instruments and Assessment Files release consists of data files created from the six collection instruments described below:

• The Principal Survey focuses on whether principals already know what they need to know about the effectiveness of their teachers or whether the instruments provide new information to these principals. The survey asks principals to provide an effectiveness rating for up to 12 MET teachers. It asks them how confident they are about each rating and what information they use to assess effective teaching.

• The Student Perception Survey analyzes the value of elementary and secondary student feedback on the effort to improve both teaching and learning. Questions were created to elucidate the perceptions of the students and their school and classroom experiences.

• The Teacher Web Survey was created to help answer whether teachers take seriously the rating provide by their administrator. It asks teachers to report whether they trust their principal -- Using Meyer, Davis, and Schoonhoven's three bases of trust: consistency, competency, and benevolence. It also asks teachers whether and to what extent they have acted on the feedback provided by their principal and whether the change made a positive difference in their teaching effectiveness.

• The Teacher Working Condition Survey questions were intended to shed light on the level of support existing for teachers at their school environments, e.g., whether educators are valued, trusted, and have the time and ability to collaborate to improve instruction, as well as other aspects of working conditions such as time, facilities and resources, empowerment, professional development, community engagement, induction and leadership.

• The Teacher Knowledge Assessment questions were intended to test the utility of both newly developed and well established measures of teacher knowledge to predict measures of teacher effectiveness.

• The Survey of Enacted Curriculum was intended to investigate the role that the content of instruction plays in affecting student achievement gains, as compared to the study's broader focus on instructional quality measures

The MET project is based on two premises: First, a teacher's evaluation should depend to a significant extent on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways -- through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding. The supplemental assessments used were:

• Stanford 9 (SAT-9) Open-Ended Reading Assessment in grades 4 through 8
• Balanced Assessment in Mathematics (BAM) in grades 4 through 8
• ACT QualityCore series for Algebra I, English 9, and Biology

Panoramic digital video of classroom sessions were taken of participating teachers and students, teachers submitted commentary on their lessons (e.g., specifying the learning objective) and then trained raters scored the lesson based on classroom observation protocols using the following five observation protocols:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), developed by Robert Pianta, University of Virginia
• Framework for Teaching (FFT), developed by Charlotte Danielson
• Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), developed by Heather Hill, Harvard University, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan
• Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO), developed by Pam Grossman, Stanford University
• Quality Science Teaching (QST) Instrument, developed by Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University

A subset of the videos are also being scored using an observational protocol developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS).

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following 6, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

1. District/School File - This data file contains an ID for the district where MET teachers taught and data on the schools where they taught. All data are from year one of the study. The data included for schools include limited measures of school organization, student composition, and aggregated test score information. The file also includes data collected from school principals about the nature of teacher evaluation processes in a school.
2. Teacher File - This data file contains data on those MET teachers who participated in year one of the study only or who participated in both years of the study. There is one data record per teacher. Data in the teacher file was collected (or recorded) only once during the study. Among the variables included in the file are: (1) teacher IDs; (2) ID variables for district and school; (3) variables indicating a teacher's grade, subject, and study status; (4) measures of teachers' personal characteristics and professional background; (5) teacher responses to MET teacher working conditions survey [administered in year one of the study]; (6) teacher responses to the MET teacher survey administered [in year two of the study]; (7) teachers' scaled scores as well as multiple choice and constructed response sub-scores for the CKT measures; and (8) principal ratings of a teacher's effectiveness.
3. Class Section File - This data file contains data on the focal class sections taught by MET teachers. There is one data record per section. In most cases, generalists have one class section per year in the study, so that teachers who participated in both years of the study will have a total of 2 class sections of data per teacher record per year. Specialists generally have 2 class sections in year one and 1 class section in year two year, so that teachers who participated in both years of the study will have a total of up to 3 class sections of data per teacher record. Among the variables included for each class section taught by a teacher are: (1) section IDs; (2) ID variables for teacher, school, and district; (3) variables indicating a teacher's grade, subject, and study status; (4) measures of class composition, including aggregated data on students' prior year test scores, ethnic composition, free lunch status, and special education status; and (5) class size. Also included in this data file are: (6) value-added measures of teaching effectiveness based on student achievement scores [aggregated to the section level]; (7) measures of teaching effectiveness based on classroom observation score data [aggregated to the section level]; and (8) measures of teaching effectiveness based on student survey data [aggregated to the section level].
4. Student File - These data files contain data on students who were in the focal class sections of MET teachers during either year. Data on each student include: (1) student ID; (2) ID variables for section, teacher, school, and district; (3) measures of current and prior student achievement for all tests/years recorded [e.g., 2010-2011, 2009-2010; and up to three prior years]; (4) measures of student background [sex, ethnicity, lunch status, special education status, program participation]; and (5) student survey responses.
5. Classroom Observation Scores File - These data files contain data from all classroom observation sessions conducted on each teacher. There will be one file per observation instrument and each file will have one record for each segment scored by a rater. Data on each observation session include: (1) a segment ID, (2) ID variables for video, section, teacher, school, and district; (3) variables indicating the video's grade, and subject; (4) a variable indicating whether score comes from the primary scorer or a secondary scorer; (5) scores on the dimensions of the given observation instrument; (5) a variable indicating if the rater deferred scoring of the video to the scoring leader. Note that each video will generally have multiple rows because scores were given at the segment level. Additionally, instruments with different segment scoring lengths will not be comparable at the segment level.

The National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) combined the data of two major studies in order to understand variations among state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs and in turn, how these variations relate to child outcomes at the end of pre-k and in kindergarten. The Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten and the State-Wide Early Education Programs (SWEEP) Study provide detailed information on pre-kindergarten teachers, children, and classrooms in 11 states. By combining data from both studies, information is available from 721 classrooms and 2,982 pre-kindergarten children in these 11 states.

Pre-kindergarten data collection for the Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten took place during the 2001-2002 school year in six states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, and Ohio. These states were selected from among states that had committed significant resources to pre-k initiatives. States were selected to maximize diversity with regard to geography, program settings (public school or community setting), program intensity (full-day vs. part-day), and educational requirements for teachers. In each state, a stratified random sample of 40 centers/schools was selected from the list of all the school/centers or programs (both contractors and subcontractors) provided to the researchers by each state's department of education.

In total, 238 sites participated in the fall and two additional sites joined the study in the spring. Participating teachers helped the data collectors recruit children into the study by sending recruitment packets home with all children enrolled in the classroom. On the first day of data collection, the data collectors determined which of the children were eligible to participate. Eligible children were those who (1) would be old enough for kindergarten in the fall of 2002, (2) did not have an Individualized Education Plan, according to the teacher, and (3) spoke English or Spanish well enough to understand simple instructions, according to the teacher.

Pre-kindergarten data collection for the SWEEP Study took place during the 2003-2004 school year in five states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. These states were selected to complement the states already in the Multi-State Study of Pre-K by including programs with significantly different funding models or modes of service delivery. In each of the five states, 100 randomly selected state-funded pre-kindergarten sites were recruited for participation in the study from a list of all sites provided by the state.

In total, 465 sites participated in the fall. Two sites declined to continue participation in the spring, resulting in 463 sites participating in the spring. Participating teachers helped the data collectors recruit children into the study by sending recruitment packets home with all children enrolled in the classroom. On the first day of data collection, the data collectors determined which of the children were eligible to participate. Eligible children were those who (1) would be old enough for kindergarten in the fall of 2004, (2) did not have an Individualized Education Plan, according to the teacher, and (3) spoke English or Spanish well enough to understand simple instructions, according to the teacher.

Demographic information collected across both studies includes race, teacher gender, child gender, family income, mother's education level, and teacher education level.

The researchers also created a variable for both the child-level data and the class-level data which allows secondary users to subset cases according to either the Multi-State or SWEEP study.

The Partnership Impact Research Project is a three-year study designed to assess the nature of early education partnerships among Head Start, pre-kindergarten (pre-k), child care, and early care and education programs and their influence on child care quality and access to services. The project analyzes qualitative data in an existing database that was collected by the Quality in Linking Together (QUILT) Early Education Partnerships initiative. The QUILT database was designed to provide training and technical assistance in the development and sustainment of partnerships to professionals across the nation, including early care and education providers and state leaders. It is divided into two sections: state-level and local provider-level information. Both sections contain narratives, factual data, and documents. Additionally, the project collected new quantitative and qualitative data from randomly selected child care and Head Start providers in Ohio to study the influence of partnerships on the quality of and access to services.

The Partnership Impact Research Project explored questions about partnerships and their impact on child care and parents while attempting to determine whether state actions could influence both the development of provider-level partnerships and the processes partnerships engage in to sustain their work. Specifically, the study was designed to address the following objectives:

1. Conduct a qualitative analysis of data in an existing database to assess the nature of partnerships and state actions to support partnerships.
2. Conduct a longitudinal study that uses a quasi-experimental design and involves original data collection at three points in time to learn about the impact of partnerships on child care center quality, child care classroom quality, and accessibility of services for parents.
3. Develop detailed reports and research briefs, tailored to specific audiences such as legislators, administrators, and providers, that translate research findings into practical information that addresses questions frequently asked about child care partnerships.
4. Disseminate research reports and briefs through established networks of policy makers and practitioners, using their organizations' Web sites and publications.

The six datasets associated with this data collection are summarized below:

1. Child Care Center Data -- contains information on a variety of aspects about a child care center from the director's point of view with many focused questions aimed at the preschool population and an overview of the child care center as a whole. This dataset provides information about the population being served, services provided, teacher ratios, teacher training and education, annual budgets, funding sources, and other major aspects of a child care center in order to achieve an understanding of quality.
2. Child Care Center Partnership Data -- contains information about the child care partnership with the Head Start Agency that provides their services. There are five sections: funding sources, origins of the partnership, resources, nature of the partnership, and benefits/challenges. Information about how the partnership began, what the centers' role is, what services are provided, and a variety of general questions that inform others about the nature of the partnership are available in this dataset.
3. Head Start Background Data -- contains background information about a Head Start Agency that partners with child care centers and other information related to budget, funding sources, number of children served, and Head Start program organization.
4. Head Start Partnership Data -- a companion to the Head Start Background data, this dataset contains information about the specific partnership with each child care center the agency is involved with. There are four sections: background information, teacher training/professional development, services, and director information. Additionally, information on how the partnership began, what the agency's role is, what services are provided, and other general questions about the partnership is available.
5. Parent Data -- contains information on parents' views of the child care center that their preschooler attends. This dataset provides information about the population being served including home/school connection, how a parent views the classroom and the care being provided by the center, and the services available to both the child and parent through the center.
6. Teacher Data -- contains information about teachers' views of the child care center where they are employed. This dataset provides information about the population being served, services provided, teacher ratios, teacher training and education, and teacher experience in order to achieve an understanding of quality.