2008 Kentucky Early Childhood Data System

The past decade has seen significant focus on student achievement and the need for high-quality educational systems that can impact our country’s ability to remain a leader in the global economy. There is also increasing evidence of the significant impact that early life experiences, particularly high quality early care and education settings, have on human behavior and later school achievement.

Kentucky (KIDS NOW) and federal (No Child Left Behind, Good Start Grow Smart) Legislation focuses on the importance of setting rigorous learning standards and measuring the degree to which children are meeting those standards. Together, they have increased the need for specific outcome data to demonstrate the effectiveness of early care and education programs supported through state and federal funds.

To meet this call for higher levels of accountability and outcome data, Beth Rous and Carolyn Gooden, of the Human Development Institute, in partnership with the UK Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling, the Kentucky Department of Education Division of Public Health and Division of Child Care in collaboration with local public school preschool programs, early intervention providers, and child care providers across the state, have designed a system that provides the needed outcome data while supporting local providers in gathering and using the data immediately to improve instruction for children. The Kentucky Early Childhood Data System (KEDS) will implement high quality assessments in programs across Kentucky and provide reliable and valid data on positive child outcomes at the aggregate level. The KEDS initiative also provides an opportunity to enhance early care and education providers’ skills in using appropriate assessment tools to demonstrate child progress and inform instruction for individuals and classrooms. KEDS promotes program improvement and plans program, district, and state support through aggregation of assessment data at each level. Finally, KEDS will report on child progress in order to evaluate the success of federal, state, or district programs and initiatives.

This work builds on a two-year General Supervision Enhancement Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to research and design an early childhood assessment system. The KEDS model being implemented in Kentucky has been held as a national model for child data systems. It provides a strong model for field-based research that produces information and findings that can immediately affect policy and practice in early care and education.