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How Much do Early Educators Improve Over Time? Tracking Improvement Trajectories in the Universe of Child Care, Head Start, and Pre-K Teachers in Louisiana

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Laura Bellows, RAND Corporation; Anna Markowitz, University of California-Los Angeles; Anna Shapiro, RAND Corporation; Daphna Bassok, University of Virginia

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
README.pdf application/pdf 43.7 KB 09/28/2024 11:50:AM
rteanalysis.do text/plain 16.3 KB 09/22/2024 07:22:PM
rteanalyticdataset.do text/plain 9.4 KB 09/22/2024 07:00:PM

Project Citation: 

Bellows, Laura, Markowitz, Anna, Shapiro, Anna, and Bassok, Daphna. How Much do Early Educators Improve Over Time? Tracking Improvement Trajectories in the Universe of Child Care, Head Start, and Pre-K Teachers in Louisiana. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-09-28. https://doi.org/10.3886/E209366V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary We know surprisingly little about returns to experience among teachers working with very young children, ages 2-5. This study begins to fill that gap using data on early care and education (ECE) teachers working in all publicly funded, center-based settings in one state to document the relationship between teacher experience and an observational measure of teacher-child interaction quality. We used both cross-sectional data—similar to the data used in prior, small studies—and longitudinal data that allows us to track the improvement trajectories of individual teachers over a three-year period. Our findings show considerable improvements over a three-year period, particularly among new teachers (0.67 SD). Our longitudinal analysis also showed that although teachers in child care centers and Head Start began their careers with lower scores than teachers working in school-based pre-K programs, they demonstrated steeper growth trajectories. 
Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources Spencer Foundation (201900001); Institute for Education Sciences (R305B170002)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms education workforce; preschool; early childhood education; returns to experience


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Published Versions

V2 [2024-10-07]

V1 [2024-09-28]

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DDI 2.5

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