Early Education and Care

The annual Massachusetts Statewide STEM Summit brings together key leaders in business, government and education to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education.  For the last two years, the Department of Early Education and Care (DEEC) and Wheelock College have jointly hosted a pre-summit conference to raise awareness of the importance of STEM education in early education and care and out of school time settings.  This report, “Branching Out: Expanding STEM Learning in Massachusetts Early Childhood and Out of School Time Settings” summarizes the key activities and outcomes of pre-summit conference in October 2011, as well as the strategic areas that emerged for further advancing STEM learning in ECE and OST settings.

The Department of Early Education and Care worked with the Hanover Research group to survey programs about staff salaries and benefits, professional development, occupancy costs, curriculum and assessment, classroom materials, and other expenses related to childcare. 

More than half of respondents (57%) represented a center-based or school-based program, while 36% represented family child care programs and 7% represented after-school or out of school time programs. In many instances, the group mean for a given survey item was considerably higher than the group median. In general, this suggests that a small subset of very high values impacted the group average, while the majority of respondent values were clustered around a smaller value. Key findings may be found in the Summary of Findings and the Full Report below.

Summary of Findings

Full Report

Powerpoint Presentation

Between July, 2010 and August, 2011, Connected Beginnings Training Institute offered Foundations of the CSEFEL Pyramid Model to more than 1,800 early education and care professionals in 66 different community locations across Massachusetts through EEC American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding and participant registration fees. EEC commissioned a full, comprehensive evaluation of the project.  A summary of key evaluation findings is presented in this evaluation brief, Foundations of the CSEFEL Pyramid Model (January, 2012). Highlights covered by this brief include: aggregate demographic data for participants; a summary of key evaluation findings on learning outcomes; usefulness and satisfaction with the course and likelihood that participants will be able to put new knowledge into action in their work; and lessons learned from this project.

Putting Science and the System to Work for Infants and Toddlers.

The IHE Mapping Project maps the current network of two and four year public and select private Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) in Massachusetts that offer an Early Childhood Education (ECE) program of study, elementary education program or program in a related field that leads to a certificate, and/or an associate's or a bachelor's degree. The project includes a school profile for each school surveyed and a searchable database of ECE degree program required coursework. Note: this information is current as of June 2010; as of July 28, 2010 state legislation was signed changing six Massachusetts' state colleges into state universities.