New Study Confirms Educare Helps Children Get Ahead

High Quality Early Experiences Make Huge, Lasting Impact on Lives; Educare Arizona Leads National Network In Key Categories

PHOENIX, Arizona (April 6, 2017) — A new report further solidifies the fact that Educare Arizona has an outsized impact on the life trajectories for the 1,000 young children it has served since its inception.

The study confirms that these young people are getting ahead instead of falling behind early – a feat that reset their futures and stay with them for decades. And local research shows that Educare Arizona students and teachers are performing at a level at or above their national counterparts.

Researchers from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and evaluators at each Educare school have been studying implementation and outcomes since 2005. Through the innovative Educare Implementation Study, researchers assess child and family outcomes, staff practices, and Educare classroom and program quality.

The report includes Educare Implementation Study data from the 2014–2015 school year, collected from 20 schools and more than 2,700 children and families. Key findings include:

• Educare students, including dual-language learners, outperform low-income peers on vocabulary assessments.
• Children who enter Educare at younger ages, have higher levels of receptive vocabulary skills at kindergarten entry than children who start Educare later.
• Dual-language learners benefit even more from earlier entry and longer involvement in Educare, demonstrating stronger gains in English- language ability.
• Educare’s intentional focus on building children’s social-emotional skills before age 3 and continuing through age 5 works.
• Educare classroom quality, which contributes to positive student outcomes, consistently exceeds that of classrooms in other
national studies.

The report is available on Educare’s website, EducareSchools.org.

“We know that early childhood is a critical period and that it’s a time when parents, caretakers and teachers need to stimulate children to establish a solid foundation for future learning,” said Christine Nowaczyk, President of the Board of Directors of Educare Arizona. “This new report confirms that the work we are doing at Educare Arizona and throughout all the Educare facilities across the U.S. is having an impact and is setting children up for success.”

Locally, Educare Arizona recently completed its own independent evaluation of its programs and services. The study found that Educare Arizona’s students are achieving at close to the same levels as their national counterparts in the Educare Network. Additionally:

• Teachers at Educare Arizona lead the Educare Network in classroom quality scores for children ages 3-5 as measured by the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R).
• Teachers scores on the ECERS-R also are significantly higher than other publically-funded preschool programs and other center-based care.
• Teachers in the infant/toddler classes have the highest scores in the Educare Network for engaging young children and supporting their learning.
• Educare Arizona leads the Educare Network in preparing young children for school as indicated by children’s scores on a school readiness assessment just prior to kindergarten entry.   This finding is true for English speaking children and children who are learning English as a second language.

The Educare model is built on the foundation of the Head Start and Early Head Start performance standards. Comparisons with Head Start and Early Head Start are made within this report to show how Educare children and families progress compared to other low-income children and families.

Educare Arizona’s mission is to provide the highest quality early childhood education to children and families in need — with almost 1,000 Phoenix children served over the past five years.

Children who experience Educare for a full five years arrive at elementary school performing on par with average kindergarteners, regardless of socio-economic standing, research shows and Educare children have more extensive vocabularies and are better able to recognize letters, numbers and colors than their peers. And early findings indicate the gains Educare children make hold as they move through elementary school.