Commitment by Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, Stanford University
The Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe and CEPA Labs at Stanford University commit to offer READY4K!, a text messaging program for parents to promote child development, to all parents of four year olds in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years. In addition, CEPA Labs will offer READY4K! to parents of preschoolers in Dallas Independent School District, San Francisco Unified School District, Acelero Learnings multi-state network of Head Start centers, and Little Sprouts preschools. In total, the commitment will impact 39,800 families. CEPA Labs will conduct large-scale randomized controlled trial studies to assess the efficacy of the expansion to new school districts and child care centers.
Overview
Commitment: Text Messaging to Support Parents & Improve Child Outcomes
Launched: 2015
Est. Duration: 2 Years
Estimated Total Value: $1,330,000
Region: Northern America
Countries: United States
Commitment by: Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, Stanford University
Partner(s): Dallas Independent School District, San Francisco Unified School District, Acelero Learning, Little Sprouts
Details
January-June 2015:
- CEPA Labs and ELCMDM ratify research agreements
- Begin work on parent outreach strategy and enroll parents
- Modify ELCMDM's on-line enrollment portal to facilitate READY4K! enrollment
- Open enrollment to families for 2015-16 school year
- Issue press release about the commitment
July-September 2015:
- Finish enrolling parents
- ELCMDM to provide CEPA Labs with READY4K! enrollment data
- CEPA Labs to upload data to texting platform
- CEPA Labs to begin administering texts; CEPA Labs-ELCMDM weekly teleconference
October-December 2015:
- CEPA Labs to continue administering texts
- CEPA Labs-ELCMDM weekly teleconference
January-March 2016:
- CEPA Labs to continue administering texts
- CEPA Labs-ELCMDM weekly teleconference
- CEPA Labs to begin work on parent and/or teacher surveys and/or focus groups
April-June 2016:
- CEPA Labs to continue administering texts
- CEPA Labs-ELCMDM weekly teleconference
- CEPA Labs and ELCMDM collect outcome data
July-September 2016:
- CEPA Labs to analyze data and report findings
2016-17 school year:
- Repeat process
*The processes for the Dallas ISD, SFUSD, Acelero Learning, and Little Sprouts expansions are very similar. The Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe (ELCMDM) and the Center for Education Policy Analysis Labs (CEPA Labs) commit to offer READY4K!, a text messaging program for parents of preschoolers with demonstrated efficacy, to all parents of four year olds in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years (over 40,000 families in total). In addition, CEPA Labs will offer READY4K! to parents of preschoolers in Dallas Independent School District, San Francisco Unified School District, Acelero Learnings multi-state network of Head Start centers, and Little Sprouts preschools, ultimately impacting 39,800 families.
To enroll their children in Floridas Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) Program, all parents in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties must complete an on-line form. On this form, parents will be asked whether or not they would like to receive text messages to support their childrens learning (the default selection is yes). After the enrollment period ends, ELCMDM will send consent and contact information from parents to CEPA Labs, which will upload cell phone numbers into its text messaging platform and begin sending READY4K! text messages. CEPA Labs will send texts from September to May during both the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years. To evaluate program effectiveness, CEPA Labs will conduct a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) study in which different groups of parents will receive different versions of the program (e.g., one group of parents will receive literacy texts only while another group will receive a combination of literacy and math texts). For these studies, CEPA Labs will generally rely on data already collected by the state of Florida such as the Florida VPK assessment, which assesses children in literacy and math. CEPA Labs may also collect additional data from children and their parents and teachers.
Also during 2015-16 and 2016-17, CEPA Labs will evaluate program effectiveness in additional expansion projects in Dallas, San Francisco, and with Acelero and Little Sprout sites by conducting RCT studies.
Background
The home learning experiences of young children vary dramatically. Hart and Risley (1995), for example, finds that by the age of four, poor children in the United States hear about 30 million fewer words than wealthy children. Such disparities are troubling given strong links between the home learning environment and children's development of motor, social, emotional, literacy, and numeracy skills (see, e.g., Anderson, 2006).
To date, only a small number of parenting programs have had positive effects on parents or their children (Duncan, Ludwig & Magnuson, 2010). Even the most promising interventions, such as pediatric clinic-based programs (Mendelsohn et al., 2001) and home visitation programs (Olds et al., 1997), have meaningful limitations including access (Prinz & Miller, 1994) and cost (Aos, Lieb, Mayfield, Miller & Pennucci, 2004).
Many existing interventions try to rapidly change complex parenting behaviors over a short period of time. A more promising approach is to break down the complexity of parenting into small steps that are easy to achieve, provide encouragement and support to parents over an extended period of time, and leverage technology to reach as many parents as possible.
Given its widespread use, low cost, and ease of scalability, text messaging is the ideal technology. Ninety-seven percent of American adults under the age of 50 have cell phones, 98 percent of cell phone owners can access texts, and text messages have a 95 percent open rate (Ehrlich, 2013; Zickuhr & Smith, 2012).
During the 2014-15 school year, a literacy-focused text messaging program for parents of preschoolers called READY4K! was experimentally tested in San Francisco Unified School District. Results from this study indicate that parents who received texts were more involved at home and school than control group parents. Moreover, children of treatment group parents gained two to three additional months of learning in important areas of early literacy (York & Loeb, November 2014).
Partnership Opportunities
We welcome financial support for the administration and evaluation of the program. We also welcome media support.
CEPA Labs offers implementation and evaluation support as part of its commitment.