EEC Board Committee

EEC Board Committee Planning and Evaluation

Thursday, June 11, 2009 10:00am-12:00pm

Department of Early Education and Care 10 Austin Street Worcester, MA 01609

AGENDA Members of the Committee Present Sherri Killins, EEC Commissioner (Ex-Officio) Julie Culhane, Committee Chairperson Orlando Isaza

Members of the Committee Present – attending by phone Sharon Scott-Chandler, Board Chairperson, (Ex-Officio) Lynson Moore Beaulieu

Guest Colleen Manning, Goodman Research Group

EEC Staff Present Rod Southwick Jennifer Louis

The meeting was called to order at: 10:15 a.m.

Welcome and Introductions Committee members were welcomed and introductions were made.

Minutes Members had an opportunity to review the minutes. No changes were necessary for the May 14th minutes.

Discussion:

Summer only voucher

Rod explained that CCIMS could give us the type of employment. The CCR&Rs could ask this information during the application process with the family. This field is currently available in CCIMS however it is currently not a required field. EEC would have to ask the CCR&Rs to collect the data in this field.

Rod and Corey received a response back from ESE about following up on the children receiving a summer only voucher. If EEC provides ESE with a list of children who received summer only vouchers, ESE will return aggregated data including % low income, MCAS, etc. 51 Sleeper Street, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02210 Phone: 617-988-6600 • Fax: 617-988-2451 • [email protected] www.eec.state.ma.us in aggregate for the children identified as summer only. Sherri asked if ESE could also provide attendance data. Rod will contact ESE to see if this is possible.

The summer only vouchers can be opened to those already on the waitlist should the 1200 slots not be filled by children in the Commissioner’s districts.

Program Survey

The program survey can be done through surveymonkey.com. The survey should focus on what the programs are doing what is special about the program.

Additional questions should be: - Education level of summer only staff - Whether the staff is new or returning (year round employee, only in the summers or a new employee) - % of staff that has worked in the program before. - Whether staff is full time or part-time. On the question about what is the focus of the summer program the following changes should be made: - Separate out onto separate lines science, technology and math - Add Engineering - Delete the other choice - Add Community Service - Add Arts and Music - Change question to read focus of activities to close summer learning gap.

Sherri thought and the group agreed that the accreditation question was not useful since there are only 10 programs that are accredited. EEC should investigate whether summer camps can get accredited. If not the question should be deleted. If so, the accreditation should be added in. American Camp Association does accredited programs but looking through the membership list, only day camps were listed.

The last question about the programs view of how the programs sees their relationship with the local public school district should be changed to “How is your program aligned with school to close the summer learning gap?” Use a 3 point likert scale for this. Another question should how are you collaborating with the local school public school and give an example or two as to how this occurs. Members of the group thought it was important to hear both challenges and successes with working with local public schools.

Group members thought it was important to include instructions for the survey and to briefly explain why EEC is collecting the information and how EEC plans to use the data collected.

Before sending the survey out, Sherri thought it was important to run the final draft of the survey by EEC’s ARRA group first. The ARRA should share the survey with the Governor’s ARRA oversight group.

System Capacity Report

Discussion: The group looked at an example of the Community Profile for Springfield. The Community Profiles are a town by town analysis. The following are recommendations for changes to the profiles: - Attach a glossary of definitions for each “indicator.” - It was suggested that the profiles include more on educational risk. DCF cases, homeless, etc. are not necessarily indicators of educational risk. Members suggested that a better proxy for educational risk. Income level might be a better proxy. - Add low birth weight and prenatal care data. - Methodology of how the data is obtained is needed. - Show the “n” as well as the percentages. - Race and ethnicity is important. For example, In Holyoke, 50% families decide not to put kids in care. Is this culture, language, etc.? We don’t know yet. - Add number/percent of immigrants in town. - Add more about language (put with demographics, add race and ethnicity and immigrants in town). Language- ex. Russian doesn’t affect or impede access to services vs. Spanish speaking might. - Community Dimensions- to obtain a more community look, data from libraries could be included. - Members discussed adding in information about public school teachers. How many are certified? If this gets added in, information of community based programs will need to be added as well. This is information will have to wait since we do not have the information for community based programs at this time. - Public school teachers- how many are certified teachers. Children of color historically lower number of teachers certified. We also need to do 0-5 in community based programs and we aren’t able to do that yet. - Add in 2 family households and balance families information. Household size? - Unemployment rate? Because the rate changes so much and doesn’t include all people who can work but aren’t, using number of 16-54 years who are employed might be more useful. - Add in Food Stamps (DTA)- % of population. - Add in % of affordable housing. - Free/reduced lunch. - Take Head Start out and put in the note because it’s already in there because they are all licensed but Worcester Public School. Move SACC down. - FCC- split out FCC under 2 and over 2 if possible. - Add in number of elementary schools.

The next meeting members should discuss how to share this information with the CCR&Rs and the communities. There should also be a comparison with the DOE community profiles to determine what additional information might be useful to bring in.

Market Price Study

Discussion: Colleen Manning, Director of Research at Goodman Research Group, gave highlights of the 2008-2009 Market Rate Study. She also provided a context for how this year’s was different from past ones. She provided progress and observations of the data so far. Goodman and Mills Consulting conducted the 2002 MRS, but did not conduct the 2006 MRS.

Differences between this year’s MRS and previous MRS studies. - The interview scripts this year were greatly abbreviated - Massachusetts is the 11th state to use NAACRAware to collect data. The benefit of using NAACRAware is that the data is collected on a regular basis, since the CCR&Rs are already updating the rate data every six months. Using NAACRAware saves money and gets broader data. - This year’s MRS was a near census rather than sample. This provided more precision and confidence. The response rates were Center = 93%, FCC = 82% and SACC = 85%, of those who were eligible. Goodman does not know who did not respond. - The analysis represents progress in that there will be credible information on prices at zip code level. This also represents progress in MRS research. HLM with spatial correlation will be used in this year’s analysis. This methodology takes into account the nested nature of programs (providers nested in zip code nested within region). This method can help to estimate data in sparse areas. Spatial correlation takes into account what’s happening in adjacent zip codes (as one element for estimating prices).

Progress - Cleaning the data. More cleaning than normal, to clean codes and ensure that it’s new data. - Converted rates to daily rates when needed. - The data is weighted by number of slots, as opposed to number of providers. This doesn’t produce large effects, except for infants in Boston. There are large centers there with high rates. Looked at median and 75% weighted by desired capacity, and looked without weighting just by provider. Very similar except infants in Boston. - Goodman is currently working on zip code analysis. Provide data to prompt discussion on accuracy of reimbursement areas. - Colleen thought there were no surprises in the data. Centers prices are highest in Boston, Greater Boston and Northeast. Family- highest Greater Boston and Northeast. SACC same but western region less expensive. Prices higher in eastern part of the state - Compared to 2002, median gone up, family- infant toddler rates up except Boston, same for kids over 2 in Boston (no increase). SACC increase all but Northeast. - Do lower rates reduce access? Colleen doesn’t have data to answer that. Need to do needs assessment. Raised concern that traditionally when look at kids compared to licensed slots this doesn’t include the factor of rates. Knowing that 60% of programs participate in EEC’s financial assistance system doesn’t acknowledge that some providers only take 1-2 kids. On the Vineyard, after July 1, there will only be five providers who will take our rates. It was noted that CPC providers who received higher CPC rate are now down to Voucher/Contract rates. Can Goodman help layout the formula to get this information? The data are there. Colleen will work with Rod about how to do this. - Rates = quality? Rates= stability= quality. How to increase quality using rates (QRIS, etc.)? How do we get to quality through rates? Colleen- study from last year in Vermont contracted to do EEC landscape. Quality was part of it. Link of provider income to quality. Not sure of link between compensation and rates. Provider cost survey - gives some basis. Link between cost and price. They are comparable, except in Boston where price is lower than cost. Teach model connects compensation and quality. Need to find ways to fund compensation versus increasing rates, which is not direct to compensation. - Total cost of increasing all reimbursement rates to median price would cost $34.5M for Centers and $22M for Family= $57M not including SACC. We’d probably get closer to quality putting it to salary and compensation. - Salary affects turnover, providers in field longer increases relationships. What is the tenure for development of child in a program? How do we get teachers to stay for that period (3-5 years?)? Want stability of relationships more so than tenure. - Tenure in job, Cost Study found no difference in cost to provide classroom of kids. Little effect on those with no or lots of experience. No difference if the staff had lots of experience or none. Staff got paid less but had fewer kids with no experience. More experience, more kids, but more salary. Sharon disagreed but Rod will provide Sharon with the information.

Quality and Cost - What does quality cost? Cost study assumptions- education, accreditation, provision of services (comprehensive services). What is quality in relation to price? Go to literature to find out what is quality and what it costs. Cost comparisons for quality. Not moving to a place where we say, this is what it costs to deliver quality. Next month - factors that need to be there for quality. What it costs? Needs to be a living wage for those who do this work. Look at salaries based on centers, public schools, family child care. Definition of quality based on certain factors (Pre-K Now?). Are they making a minimum wage? Family Child Care is complex to figure out their wage. Economies of scale. If increased capacity, costs go down. Price directly related to cost. Can use price to substitute for costs, except for Boston? Cost based on spending and donated. Do more people in Boston have donated space than other parts of the state?

- Next steps o Rod will work with Colleen to get programs who accept lower than median rates and population, to see if kids do have access (60%) o Look at models that link quality. Compensation= quality? TEACH model. Buying other things, individuals vs. programs. o Get Anne Witte to talk about cost of classroom structure vs. tenure o Market Rate Study report due at the end of June.

The committee convened at 12:10pm