Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The Child Parent Center Preschool to third grade (P-3) program is a targeted school reform effort to promote children’s academic success and facilitate parent involvement in children’s education. This school reform has 6 key elements. The six key elements are (1) Effective learning experiences from Pre-K to third grade, (2) Aligned curriculum, (3) Parent involvement and engagement, (4) Collaborative leadership team, (5) Continuity and stability of services, and (6) Professional development system consisting of online modules and on-site follow up support. Using data obtained from a study financed by the U.S. Department of Education i3 program to fund the Midwest Expansion of the Child Parent Center program, the authors will discuss how implementation was measured and how it varied across the 25 Chicago sites. Using measures of the strength of the fidelity of implementation across sites, findings will be reported demonstrating how effectiveness in terms of short-term achievement outcomes varies with respect to intervention quality. The topic of this paper is highly responsive to the conference theme on the importance of measurement.