Student Loans and the Early Education Workforce
Boston EQUIP collaborated with Bessie Tartt Wilson Initiative for Children in 2011 to assess the burden of student loans on the early educator workforce in Massachusetts. Through surveys and focus groups with educators throughout the state, EQUIP found that student loan debt is a significant barrier to financial stability and the pursuit of further education.
An Early Educator's Dilemma: Balancing Educational Aspirations and Student Loan Debt
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Accreditation and Teacher Education
In 2010 EQUIP connected the dots in a brief on accreditation and teacher education based on results of the 2009 Community Profiles Surveys. Click on the brief below.
EQUIP Fall 2010 Policy Brief.pdf
Since 1995, Boston EQUIP has been tracking quality in five benchmark areas.
Boston Quality Inventory Reports
To provide a comprehensive picture of the quality of Boston’s early care and education programs with the goal of informing strategic planning, Boston EQUIP and the Boston Child Care Alliance worked with the Wellesley Centers for Women to create the Boston Quality Inventory. Three reports were generated about Center-Based Preschool classrooms, Infant and Toddler Center-Based classrooms and Family Child Care.
2010 Boston Quality Inventory Reports
On Monday, November 22 at the The Boston Foundation, Boston EQUIP released the Boston Quality Inventory 2010, which provides a picture of the current quality of family child care homes and center-based programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers throughout the city. The report provides critical information to help Boston policy-makers, service providers and funders assess city-wide progress on the 2008 Thrive in 5 School Readiness Roadmap, which sets goals and strategies for strengthening, coordinating and improving the quality of child and family-serving systems in the city, in order to prepare children to succeed in school.
2010 Boston Quality Inventory Executive Summary
2010 Boston Quality Inventory Full Report
2009 Community Profiles Report
2009 Community Profilles Executive Summary
2009 Community Profiles Full Report
2007 Boston Quality Inventory Reports
2007 Boston Quality Inventory – Preschool Executive Summary
PowerPoint Presentation
2007 Boston Quality Inventory - Preschool Full Report
2007 Boston Quality Inventory - Infant and Toddler Full Report
2007 Boston Quality Inventory - Family Child Care Full Report
PowerPoint presentation
Starting Points: Quality of Boston's Center and School-Based Preschool Classrooms (2007)
Child Assessment Tools in Boston Early Care & Education Programs
The use of child assessment tools is becoming increasingly popular as a means to improve early care and education quality and demonstrate accountability. Curious about where Boston programs and providers were with respect to implementing and using child assessment tools, Boston EQUIP recently conducted a survey of Boston ECE programs.
Methods
Education Barriers and Supports for the Early Care and Education Workforce
This report describes the supports and barriers to post-secondary education in the voices of Boston's early care and education workforce members themselves. These data are complemented with lessons learned by other entities, evidence-based best practices, and policy recommendations. This information is all summarized in tables that include actionable steps to assist all levels of stakeholders in supporting the post-secondary education of Boston's ECE workforce.
Executive Summary
"Where are the children?"
In the fall of 2006, we were hearing from many programs in the community that they were having a hard time filling their enrollment. Everyone we talked with had a hypothesis about why this might be happening, so we set out to test the hypotheses using data, and to find out where are the children?!
Demographics of the Early Care and Education Workforce
This brief summarizes findings from surveys of Boston’s early care and education teachers and family child care providers. Understanding the characteristics of workforce members is essential to planning effective educational supports.
Click here for the brief on the demographics of the Early Care and Education Workforce
Boston Parent Survey
In 2006, Boston EQUIP and Strategies for Children engaged Opinion Dynamics to conduct a survey of parents to learn about their needs and priorities for early care and education. The research questions addressed include: 1) What are the current patterns of early care and education experienced by Boston children ages 0-6? 2) What are families' preferences for their early care and education arrangements? 3) What criteria do families use for selecting early care and education arrangements? 4) If families could choose one thing about their current arrangements, what would it be?
Boston children are using on average 1 to 2 early care & education arrangements per week, in addition to their parents. Boston parents say "quality" is more important than "cost" in their choice of current early care and education arrangements.
Mapping Early Care and Education in Boston
Boston EQUIP worked with the Comprehensive Services Committee of the Boston Community Partnerships for Children to address transportation as a barrier for young children receiving special education services in Boston. The maps include all of the early care and education programs, family child care providers, and Boston Public Schools ELCs, EECs, K-5s and K-8s, within distance of .25 miles and .5 miles around each BPS school.
Click here for North Zone
Click here for East Zone
Click here for West Zone
Analysis of the Demand for Subsidized Child Care in Boston
In an effort to address the question of the demand for full-time subsidized care and education in Boston, Boston EQUIP analyzed data from the Census 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) and the Boston Public Health Commission birth records. The specific research question addressed was: What is the demand for full-time subsidized care and education in Boston, as determined by calculating the number of preschool children with working parents who fall below 50%, 85%, 100% and 125% of the state median income (SMI)?
2005 Neighborhood Profiles Presentations and Reports
Link: forthcoming
Early Childhood in Boston: What do children and families need? What's available? How good is it?
the 2005 Community Profiles surveys: Also know as "the Orange Book"
Boston Early Education Quality Improvement Project Family Survey Report