California has made a substantial investment in supporting young children’s learning and development. Critical questions now are: How well are elements of the early childhood education system working? Can they be improved? Can better coordination and alignment improve overall effectiveness and outcomes for children? What else needs to be done to ensure a strong educational foundation for all children?
None of these questions or others like them can be answered without systematic information – reliable data. Data collection and analysis can guide the efficient delivery and effectiveness of government programs by helping policymakers and practitioners identify needs, set goals, determine actions to achieve those goals, and assess the impact of various strategies. Data systems also help decision makers and practitioners understand how strategies, programs, and policies interact so that they can optimize their combined efforts.
Early childhood data can be used at the local level to support informed decision making by administrators and practitioners. For example, data on children’s skill levels, learning gains, and needs can help teachers plan classroom instruction, and it can help programs identify appropriate curricula and professional development. Data on families’ culture and needs can inform instructional programming and program schedules to better accommodate families.
At the state level, early childhood data can help inform the development of policies, such as whether there is a need to provide a full day of services or design programs to better serve children with disabilities. State-level data can be used to assess the effects of investments and particular policies and inform strategies to improve quality and efficiency. Data can also facilitate targeted investments to better reach children and families most in need, as well as inform the investment strategy for targeted and intensive technical assistance to support equitable program improvement. In other states, linked data across programs and sectors has also allowed policymakers to better understand the integration of services and their related impact.
There are significant gaps in data related to the education of young children in California. Moreover, the data that exists is not used effectively. Due in part to the fragmented governance structure of ECE program administration (see Section 1), California’s ECE data--whether on children and families, specific programs and services, the workforce, or initiatives to support quality improvement--exist in separate, disconnected local- and state-level data systems across childcare, preschool, TK-12, and higher education. Consequently, in addition to being inadequate, the information that is collected is not integrated for comprehensive use at the state level.
The disconnected data systems are rooted in data collection, storage, and analysis tied to particular programs or pieces of legislation. When a single provider draws on funding from multiple programs to deliver services to a single child, the data on that child and the services received often are not connected. This makes it difficult for state administrators to understand the reach and impact of the programs they administer, as well as to meet any unmet needs for the services they provide. For many ECE programs, no single state agency or team of analysts within an agency has direct access to all data collection and storage systems pertaining to that particular program. The siloing of data and the lack of intentional alignment in data collection, storage and access makes answering many key statewide questions about ECE in California difficult, if not impossible.
Even at the local level the use of multiple data collection and storage tools makes integration of data to inform programmatic decisions and practice difficult. Data collection and entry requires time for ECE programs and providers to complete. This is valuable time that could be spent on direct service delivery or quality improvement. When data is integrated, useful, and used, then the time spent is worthwhile. When data collection and storage is fragmented, however, providers may spend their valuable time entering the same or very similar data into multiple systems, without the ability to use it coherently to inform programmatic decisions and practice.
Understanding the current status of California’s early childhood data collection, storage, and analysis is critical to taking steps to improve it. This section answers the following questions and makes recommendations to support California’s progress towards data-driven ECE policies and practices that meet the needs of diverse children and families across the state:
- What data on ECE does the state collect? What gaps exist in the state’s data collection?
- How is California’s current ECE data infrastructure structured?
- At the state level?
- At the local level?
- What role does external data collection and analysis play in California's decision making?
- What strategies exist to support integrated data systems for better data-driven decision making, and how can California support better data-driven decision-making in the future?
