Connecticut Office of Early Childhood
The TMW Center has partnered with the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood to examine what factors drive quality in early childhood education settings—and to create a blueprint for measuring and optimizing them.
This real-world research collaboration utilizes Luet, a new measurement tool developed by the TMW Center to uncover the characteristics of Early Childhood Education (ECE) settings that most directly and positively impact child outcomes. Working with the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood we will design, pilot, and evaluate a roadmap for leveraging Luet to enhance ECE program quality and educator supports. That roadmap will consist of two complementary elements:
- Newly discovered evidence-based quality metrics that correlate with improved child outcomes
- A scalable professional development model featuring real-time support for childcare providers
After a year of pilot testing, we will conduct an RCT throughout Connecticut to evaluate the impact of the roadmap on children’s skill development and school readiness outcomes. We will also test teacher outcomes related to job satisfaction and stress (which in turn affect children). Ultimately, this RCT will test the hypothesis that its beneficial to provide teachers access to otherwise hard-to-observe metrics and to offer them guidance on a real-time, daily basis without the need for time-consuming work outside the classroom.
Once studied and validated, we hope that this roadmap for measuring and driving ECE quality will serve as a prototype for other states across the country and around the world.