Resources & Publications

Featured Resource

The goals of the Educare Research Agenda to advance racial equity are: 1. to elevate innovative research questions, methodologies, and practices with broad implications for practice, programs, policy, children, and families; 2. to guide continuous quality improvement and provide both learning and celebratory opportunities; and 3. to impact the ECE field by informing practitioners, policymakers, funders, researchers, and advocates about Educare’s efforts and findings that show promise for improving access, program quality, and outcomes of children, families, and the ECE workforce.

This agenda helps us collaborate in specific ways to accomplish our Network’s strategic priorities through collective research and inquiry, with sample questions organized into four categories of focus:

Policies & Systems
Programs & Professionals
Communities, Families & Children
Measurement & Data

Research Updates

Early Care and Education Professionals Talk About Talking About Race with Young Children

Using Data Walks to Leverage Community Expertise: Examples in Research-Practice Partnerships

Within-Year Teacher Turnover and Children’s Developmental Outcomes in Head Start and Early Head Start Programs in the Post-COVID-19 Era

A Longitudinal Study of Head Start Teacher Turnover Trends and Factors

Building Equitable Research and Evaluation Practices in the Educare Learning Network

Exploring the relation between early childhood education and historical and contemporary racism and bias for Black children.

Retention and turnover of teaching staff in a high-quality early childhood network.

Is starting earlier better? A propensity score analysis of toddler-year impacts for English only and Spanish-speaking dual language learners

Lead teacher, assistant teacher, and peer racial/ethnic match and child outcomes for Black children

Early education program racial and ethnic composition and associations with quality and children’s language and social-emotional development.

Kindergarten through grade 3 outcomes associated with participation in high-quality early care and education: A RCT follow-up study.

Profiles of Parenting for Low-Income Families and Links to Children’s Preschool Outcomes

Associations Between Continuity of Care in Infant-Toddler Classrooms and Child Outcomes

High Quality Early Education: Age of Entry and Time in Care Differences in Student Outcomes for English-Only and Dual Lanugage Learners

Measure List

Educare National Evaluation Measures (2025-26) 
This chart provides more information about measures used in the evaluation.

Publications List

Educare Publication List
Journal articles, book chapters, and dissertations/theses using Educare data.

Follow-up Study

Local evaluators in Atlanta, Central Maine, Denver, Kansas City, and Tulsa followed Educare and non-Educare children into the early grades of elementary school. These follow-up studies provide critically needed information about developmental trajectories of children when they are in early childhood programs and after they transition to primary school. These studies examine which skills developed during time enrolled in Educare underlie acquisition of academic and social skills during the first years of elementary school.

Randomized Study

The effectiveness of Educare in improving child outcomes at age 3 was evaluated in a randomized study. This study began following 239 children from low-income families who were randomly assigned as infants (<19 months) to Educare or a control group.

Educare Outcomes at Age 3

Additional Resources

Educare National Evaluation Overview

Educare National Evaluation Spring 2021 Family and Staff Survey (Video)