researcher paper

Policy to deal with inequality in access to preschool services by the

economically disadvantaged children

Ebtissam Faqirah

Terrence Ward

PA513

Fall2015

WK13_ Written Assignment

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

1

Policy to deal with inequality in access to preschool services by the economically

disadvantaged children

The Program Theory

The importance of early education to the development of children cannot be understated.

The fault in the systems of the country is that despite this importance, more effort and resources

are not being directed to the people who need it the most. It is common knowledge that it is only

through education that societal stratification can be overcome. Good education offers the

children from families that have been historically disadvantaged the ability to achieve better

economic status. In order to realize good education, the foundational stages need to be well set

such that the other latter stages can be effectively achieved.

Data about early childhood education reveals worrying trends and statistics about the

marginalized societies and their enrollment rates into early childhood educational programs.

According to Cook (2015), about half of the black children and those of Latin decent between

the age of 3 and 4 are not getting a proper preschool education. The preschool programs have

higher admissio0n rates for the white children. The economic ability of the parents therefore

rises as an important factor that encourages inequality. Given that most of the economically

disadvantaged people come from the minority groups, the society continues to have entrenched

inequalities. The implication of this state of affairs is that the gap between the disadvantaged

children and their compatriots grows bigger as they proceed to higher levels of education.

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

2

If this kind of trend continues, the social gap between the poor and rich that could have

been easily dealt with using education will become enormous. This policy seeks to reduce the

gap between educational outcomes for the children from economically disadvantaged families

with those from more affluent backgrounds. It will reverse the current situation that sees the

economically disadvantaged children being a year behind in reading in the first grade when

compared to the children. The policy to counter this inequality will majorly focus on how the

preschool access for the said children can be improved. A variety of stakeholders will have

different roles to play, which will collectively contribute to the success of the proposed policy.

The federal government has currently put in place programs such as early head start and

early childhood home visiting program (Economic Policy Institute, 2015). Such programs have

good intentions, but are not as successful as expected. This calls for the introduction of new

preschool programs or the betterment of the quality of the existing ones. The parents and

guardians also have a role to play since they are responsible for an important aspect of early

childhood education. Despite how busy they are, they need to have time to introduce and expose

children to learning and learning material, respectively. The school boards also have the role of

noting the inequality aspects as children join the formal schooling systems and how to root them.

Resources to be used

To arrive at the goals of this policy, a considerable amount of resources will be required.

The policy recommends a three-faced approach to the preschool setup. The first perspective

entails the introduction of high quality preschool programs in places they did not exist. This is

the part of the policy projected to require intensive resource input.

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

3

The other perspective will involve identifying places with low quality preschool systems and

improving them to arrive at the highest possible quality. This part of the policy will be relatively

cheaper compared to the first one. The last perspective to dealing with this problem is the

identification of places where high quality preschool programs are already set into motion. The

policy will call for the opening up of these facilities for economically disadvantaged children to

access the services. This is projected to be the cheapest part of the policy with minimum resource

input.

A civil education program that targets the economically disadvantaged family’s needs to

be done. As highlighted above, the parent has a big role in influencing the kind of educational

outcomes that their children receive. An intense sensitization campaign needs to be done by

educators and social workers targeting those parents. These campaigns will encourage the

parents to create more time for their children and introduce them to reading materials.

Lobbying of policy makers in order to channel the existing patterns of the formal

education sector needs some resource input. In the current systems, the economically

disadvantaged children are not helped to deal with their disadvantaged positions as they join

grade one.

The Inputs to the Solution

Most people are generally unaware of the importance of the first three years of a child’s

life. These years have been observed by specialists as being characterized by a very rapid

development of the brain. The children who are therefore presented with good pre-k programs

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

4

have better cognitive development progress as opposed to the non-exposed children. This

therefore informs the observation that the children from more economically stable families have

higher math and reading scores compared to the economically disadvantaged children. The direct

translation of this is that children who do not attend early childhood classes have a less

developed brain. According to Cook (2015), the tests posted by third grade children are a good

indication of whether the said child will qualify to college or not. Given that most of the

economically disadvantaged children do not get into these preschool classes, their chances of

getting into collage are compromised even before they start the formal education system.

This places these kids at a major disadvantage given the setup of today’s economy. The

ideal situation in the 21st century is one that allows children to start the road to developing a

career by first competing in high school and then securing places in college. This is therefore a

disadvantage to the economically disadvantaged children especially of the marginalized

communities, since they are less ability in language, math and other cognitive capabilities. The

societal goals that have been set for children therefore seem unreachable by such children. They

are presented by weak and late starts to their education and cognitive development. This means

that the patterns of inequality continue to persist over time if the early childhood issue goes

unchecked. The basics of education are set during the first four years, and setting these basics

late compared to other children means that inequality starts that early and persists into adulthood.

It’s the responsibility of different stakeholders in the country’s education sector to

capture the inequality that economically disadvantaged children get before they develop to long-

term societal problems. The Economic Policy Institute, (2015) gives a good analysis of the gaps

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

5

between economically disadvantaged children and their more affluent counterparts. In their

report, they document the difference in the level of both cognitive and non-cognitive

development between these two groups. The authors of this report do well in analyzing specific

gaps in terms of language, math skills, socialization abilities, and even aspects such as self-

control among the children. The analysis of this gap is viewed from the perspectives of ethnicity

and poverty levels of their parents. Through the data provided by the National Center for

Education Statistics’ of 2011, it becomes clear that a trend is developing in America where the

economically disadvantaged children join the formal system of education a step behind the other

pupils. In addition to the lack of access to kindergarten benefits, these children are also

disadvantaged in the levels that their parents are involved in their education. Most of their

parents are not as involved as the more affluent parents; the readiness of the pupils for school is

compromised.

Many writers agree that social class is an important aspect that determines the

educational outcomes of children; and being at the low class places them at a disadvantage.

When ethnicity comes into play, the poor children from a marginalized community are severely

disadvantaged given that they fall far behind in terms of education. This calls for a multispectral

approach to dealing with this problem, putting in mind the importance the society has placed on

having a good education.

Two Alternative Solutions Considered

The first alternative I considered was lobbying for the restructuring of the Elementary

and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Currently, the provisions offered in this act encourage the

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

6

involvement of all children, though the issue of quality is the main problem. These kids are not

given a level playing ground in terms of education; and it is therefore important to reach out to

these vulnerable children and help them (Economic Policy Institute, 2015).

The fault in this approach is that it mainly takes the active actors in education as the only

stakeholders in implementing the policy. The input of other important stakeholders such as the

parents has not been taken into consideration in this restructuring of ESEA. The economic aspect

is also not taken into consideration and that is why I sought to add more players in the policy that

I propose.

The other alternative I considered as a possible solution to the pre elementary school for

the economically disadvantaged children was a purely economic perspective. This alternative,

therefore, sought to improve the job and income levels of the parents. Some authors point out

that the ultimate solution to the inequality problem will be having fewer children from poor

backgrounds.

The specific actions that can be taken in this perspective is first increasing the wages of

the parents. Closely related to this is the change in the societal perspectives to minority groups in

America. This is because the minority groups where the majorities of the economically

disadvantaged children hail from are often segregated and are victims of societal biases that

undermine their educational outcomes. As with the earlier alternative, this one was single faceted

and in my analysis was not good enough to deal with this multi-faceted problem.

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

7

Activities to be Carried Out

The policy as pointed out above calls for the problem to be approached from three

perspectives. First, lobbying will need to be done to ensure that the three categories highlighted

above can be identified. This first phase will entail identifying the areas that visibly lack public

preschool programs. In places where such programs are not available, the implication is that even

the minimal attendance by the economically disadvantaged children is absent. These areas will

be targeted to ensure that such programs are initiated and made easy for the economically

disadvantaged students to attend.

The next activity will be identifying the areas that currently have the preschool programs.

After the areas have been identified; various quality measures will be used to gauge the quality

of education that the children receive. This move will be targeting to note the areas with these

programs, but which offer low quality education. The plan, therefore, will be to first improve the

edu7cational outcomes here to the highest possible level which will then be followed by the

improved accessibility of the facilities by economically disadvantaged children.

The third activity will entail the identification of the areas where the preschool system is

well developed. Is such places, the enrollment rates of the economically disadvantaged children

is expected to be low. The plan therefore is to ensure that the high quality facilities expand their

capacity to include such children. This will involve bringing together stakeholders responsible

for the expansion and success of such programs. The goal is to ensure that children, irrespective

of their economic background get an even playing field when it comes to preschool

opportunities.

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

8

The parents will also be targeted in the implementation of the policy. The problem in the

educational sector is that the educational expectations of the economically disadvantaged

children are lower compared to the affluent counterparts. This stems from the fact that most of

the poor parents are not well educated. It therefore becomes hard for them to motivate children to

get better educational outcomes. The parents need to be informed on the importance of

introducing higher educational expectations to their children. They have an important role in

introducing the children to reading materials and other academic related. The advocacy done on

the parents should effectively deal with the present disparities seen between the black and white

children.

The Expected Outputs and Outcomes

This policy recommends for the restructuring of the preschool setup in the country to see

an increased involvement of the children who are economically disadvantaged. The first outcome

is to start high quality programs in areas where there are currently no all–inclusive programs. In

this case, they policy recommends that states try to come up with small but high quality

programs as opposed to large programs that offer mediocre levels of education.in such places,

children may be already enrolled in head start programs, but providing them with better quality

services would lead to better educational outcomes.

The next expected outcome will be the improved quality in current preschool programs.

There are certain quality measurement scores that are used to analyze the performance of

schools. The systems that perform poorly will be targeted here with stakeholders supposed to

conduct the improvements contacted. The goal here is to improve the quality of the educational

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

9

outcomes in the preschool systems before they are expanded to include the children who are

economically disadvantaged. The quality issues that are considered in this approach include the

educational levels of the teachers, the student to teacher level and the quality of the services. The

quality can also be measured by analyzing the level to which the preschool systems meet the

quality benchmarks set by organizations such as the Society for Research in Child Development.

The third expected outcome is the expansion of the access of economically disadvantaged

children to the already setup, quality programs. It is inevitable that the country has some areas

that already have well established preschool programs that are of high quality. The policy will

therefore open up these programs for the economically disadvantaged children. It is expected that

this move will improve the academic outcomes of the children such that they come to be at par

with children from the economically stable families.

Program Evaluation

The evaluation research process that I will adopt will be made up of four essential parts.

The first will be a clear establishment of the overall goal of the evaluation. Since this policy is

essentially education oriented, the nature of the impact arrived at by the implementation of the

three faced policy will established through analysis of enrollment rates. The impacts will

therefore be three-phased. The first phase will look at the impact of introducing high quality

programs in the areas where they previously did not exist. The second phase will analyze the

impact of improving the quality of preschool programs in areas where low quality programs

existed. The third phase will look into the effect of opening up of the highest quality programs

for the economically disadvantaged children. The expected overall impact is that the three

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

10

strategies would lead to higher enrollment rates for children from poor backgrounds into the high

quality preschool programs. This first step of evaluation will also involve the documentation of

previously unexpected outcomes that come with the implementation of any policy. Research

shows that the policy implementation process has some aspect of being unknown and it needs to

be taken into consideration during the evaluation process (Sykes, Schneider & Plank, 2012).It is

therefore important to take into consideration the dynamic nature of the policy implementation

process.

The second aspect of the evaluation process will be the selection of the appropriate

outcome measures. These are indicators that show whether the desired goals have been arrived

at. In this case, the indicators will show whether the expected improvements have been realized,

or the otherwise. The outcome measures that will be used in the evaluation of this policy come in

the form of enrollment numbers into the preschool programs. In the current situation, a few

children from economically disadvantaged families have access to the programs. With the

implementation of the three strategies highlighted above, it is expected that the numbers will rise.

The other measures to be used will be designed to analyze the impact of specific strategies.

Strategy one touches on areas that previously lacked high quality programs. The measure here

will be the number of new preschool programs initiated. The second strategy targets the areas

with preschool programs, but which are of low quality. Quality measures employed before and

after the policy implementation will determine whether the quality of the programs is improved

before more economically disadvantaged children are encouraged to enter the programs. The

third strategy involves the expansion in the high quality preschool programs to include more

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

11

economically disadvantaged children. The measure here will be the difference in enrollment

rates, before and after the policy is implemented.

The third step in the evaluation research process will be the conducting of the actual

evaluation. The evaluation will make use of different designs that are discussed in this article.

The last step in my research will entail the communication of the evaluation results. Policy

implementation is a process that has many stakeholders and therefore leaving room for views and

feedback is important (Sykes, Schneider & Plank, 2012).

There are a number of evaluation designs that are available. These include before-and-

after, with-and-without, after-only and time-series evaluation. In this particular policy, I will

make use of the before-and-after evaluation. This is a design that compares the situation before

the implementation of the policy to the situation after the implementation of the policy. In this

design, the influence of unexpected influences is systematically excluded. This is to make the

evaluation process easier to implement.

Some of the pertinent questions that the evaluation process in this policy recommendation

will try to answer are first whether the questions were identified well identified. The evaluation

will also be set out in such a way that reveals any aspects that were overlooked. The most likely

aspects to be overlooked include data aspects. The evaluation will also be set to examine whether

the recommendations that were included in the policy were properly implemented. The other key

goals of the evaluation drive will be to know whether the desired effect was realized and whether

the policy needs any kind of re-designing.

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

12

According to Sykes, Schneider & Plank (2012), research has shown that the failure of

policies to arrive at the intended goals is mostly caused by two categories of issues. First is

theory failure. This occurs where the policy is implemented as required, but the desired changes

are not seen. In this education policy for example, the different efforts to improve the learning

outcomes for the economically disadvantaged children may be implemented, but the targeted

children are not helped. This usually means that there are other underlying causes that can

explain the problem. The other category of failure is referred to as the implementation. This

occurs where the policy is not implemented as it was designed. The evaluation process will

therefore be designed in such a way that such failures irrespective of the type are identified.

There are two approaches to evaluation. Formative evaluation is one that is continually

done during the implementation of a policy. Mechanisms in this approach are put in place to

identify specific areas where improvements can be made. This is, however a costly venture since

it calls for an extensive approach to the policy implementation process.

I will make use of the summative evaluation approach. This is the approach or type of

evolution that is ultimately done after the policy has been fully implemented. The goal of this

approach is to identify whether the policy is meeting its desired objectives. As opposed to the

formative evaluation approach, the summative approach is more compact and requires less input

or resources. In politically oriented policies such as this one, there are various forces that are

usually against their implementation. Some of them may deem to be controversial with certain

political parties with different interests, not willing to see the policies succeed. In the policy’s

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

13

implementation, it is important to anticipate that the program may be influenced by outside

developments or occurrences that may not have been previously anticipated.

This policy provides insights on how different stakeholders can come together to improve

the outcome of early childhood education. It offers information on how the current situation

where the economically disadvantaged children receive low quality or no early childhood

education services. The policy proposals come in three perspectives, with the first being the

creation of high quality programs where they are currently lacking, improvement in the quality

of the programs in places that have low quality programs and expansion of access to the highest

quality programs for the economically disabled children. It is expected that the improvement of

the early childhood education will lead to a wide variety of social benefits in addition to the

major outcome of helping the economically disadvantaged children (Cascio& Schanzenbach,

2014).

From the evaluation drive, it is expected that the policy implementation will yield some

winners and losers. The big winners here will be the economically disadvantaged children who

will move from the position where they lack exposure to pre-school education to a position

where they have access to high quality education. Since the policy recommends a three front

implementation, it is expected that the children from higher income families will move from a

privatized setup to a more public setup of the preschool. This is expected to impact their

academic outcomes, though the wider picture will have more positive outcomes.

The measurements to be provided therefore will include documentation of places affected

by the said disparities. A complete breakdown will show the areas that need introduction of new

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

14

preschool programs, the ones that need an improvement to the existing systems and the ones that

require an increased access by the economically disadvantaged children. The evaluation will also

reveal increased numbers of enrollments into the preschool system.

Ebtissam Faqirah Terrence Ward PA513 Fall2015 WK13_ Written Assignment

15

References

Cascio, E. U., & Schanzenbach, D. W. (2014). Proposal 1: Expanding Preschool Access for

Disadvantaged Children. Policies to Address Poverty in America, 19.

Cook, L. (2015). U.S. Education: Still Separate and Unequal. US News & World Report.

Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/28/us-education-

still-separate-and-unequal

Economic Policy Institute,. (2015). Early Education Gaps by Social Class and Race Start U.S.

Children Out on Unequal Footing: A Summary of the Major Findings in Inequalities at

the Starting Gate. Retrieved from http://www.epi.org/publication/early-education-gaps-

by-social-class-and-race-start-u-s-children-out-on-unequal-footing-a-summary-of-the-

major-findings-in-inequalities-at-the-starting-gate/

Sykes, G., Schneider, B., & Plank, D. N. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of education policy research.

Routledge.