Virginia Preschool Initiative+ Cost Study Final Report
By Sherylls Valladeres Kahn, Lynn Karoly, Jill Cannon, Kristina Rodriguez, Aisha Pittman Fields, Laura Hawkinson with support from SRI International
Overview
In partnership with SRI International, Virginia Department of Education, and the RAND Corporation, SRC supported an impact evaluation and conducted a cost study of the expansion of Virginia’s preschool program (VPI+). This work, funded by the Preschool Development Grant, evaluated the experiences of thousands of children, and the programming in eleven school divisions throughout the state of Virginia.
Our Process
Building and Managing a Robust Data Collection System for the Impact Evaluation
Our team administered summative assessments [including the Woodcock-Johnson III: Tests of Achievement, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-4), the Head Toes Knees Shoulders task, and a motor development task] to over 3,000 children at each data collection cycle in fall 2016, fall and spring 2017, and fall and spring 2018. The purpose of these assessments was to measure impacts on school readiness across school readiness domains, and to examine variations in impacts by program and child characteristics. Our team accomplished this by hiring, training, and managing data collection teams of approximately 40 data collectors per round, from across the state of Virginia. Throughout each cycle, SRC staff also managed data quality assurance efforts to ensure a high level of accuracy for our partners at SRI.
Examining Cost Effectiveness
SRC, in partnership with RAND corporation, led a related cost study which included a benefit-cost analysis to understand the value of the investment in VPI+ relative to the magnitude of its impact on children’s school readiness outcomes. Our team collected two years of cost data for each of the 11 participating Virginia school divisions and the Virginia Department of Education. These data represented the full cost of implementing VPI+, and thus included expenditures supported by the grant as well as district and other local investments. The SRC team cleaned, coded, and summarized the data to share with division leaders during interviews that were conducted to gather insights, confirm assumptions, and ensure the accuracy of our estimations. We presented the results of our cost research in an interim report between the study years and in a final report that included a benefit-cost analysis at the end of the evaluation.
The Outcome
Our data collection system provided our SRI partners with multiple years of high-quality data to conduct a rigorous analysis of the VPI+ program’s impact on participating children. Data from these impact analyses were subsequently used to examine the cost effectiveness of VPI+. The key findings of the cost study provided important information about the costs of implementing a high-quality preschool initiative in Virginia. The estimates reported in this study indicated the potential for VPI+ to produce a positive economic return. Full study findings can be found in the final cost study report.
Related Work
SRC Contributors
Sherylls Valladeres Kahn
Senior Director
Principal Associate
Aisha Pittman Fields
Managing Associate
Laura Hawkinson
Vice President of Research and Evaluation
