Early Care and Education

Our work in this area is extensive and has occurred at state and local levels. We have worked with states (e.g., Montana, Ohio, Kentucky) to evaluate or validate their Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) used to assess, improve, and communicate the level of quality in early childhood education programs. Our experience at the state level extends to the evaluation of early childhood initiatives as well, including South Carolina’s First Steps Initiative and their Parents as Teachers program (see a copy of the report here).

Within our home state, Compass has collaborated with more than 15 Smart Start Partnerships over the past 20 years to evaluate the investments they have made in local early childhood systems. Evaluation services provided to these clients have run the gamut from developing strategic planning processes to conducting evaluation studies, developing databases, and providing training and technical assistance in evaluation.

Other examples of our experiences in early education include assisting Frank Porter Graham with their national study on the costs of public pre-kindergarten programs and supporting the North Carolina Partnership for Children in revising their Evidence-Based/Evidence-Informed Resource Guide.