Project Director's Collections

Appendix IV
Notification Materials – Letter of Introduction, Project Brochure, and
Request for Project Materials

[U.S. Dept. of Education Letterhead]
[Date]
[ECEPD Project Director Address]
Dear ECEPD Project Director:
I am pleased to announce that Child Trends has been selected by the U.S. Department of
Education as the evaluator of the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development
(ECEPD) program. The purpose of the study is to describe, using a variety of data
sources, the structure of ECEPD partnerships, the characteristics and content of
professional development activities supported by ECEPD grants, and the characteristics
of participants in ECEPD activities. The study will also describe outcomes for
participants and outcomes for children to the extent that they can be summarized from
grantee evaluations. Finally, by aligning the descriptive findings with the five
achievement indicators that have been established for the ECEPD program, the study will
identify promising practices in professional development for early childhood educators.
The attached brochure provides more details about the evaluator, Child Trends, and the
evaluation design.
One important data collection activity in the evaluation involves interviews with all of the
Project Directors from the 2003, 2004 and 2005 ECEPD grants. The purpose of the
interview is to gather information about how your program is structured and how it
functions – information that is not necessarily available in the Annual Performance
Reports, which the Child Trends Research Team will also be reviewing as part of the
overall evaluation of ECEPD. The telephone interview of Project Directors will take
about 1.5 hours to complete, and will cover the following topics:
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Project Goals,
Project Structure,
Program Implementation,
Program Activities,
Characteristics of Participants,
Supports and Incentives,
Program Outcomes, and
Promising Practices

The information you provide during the phone interview will be consolidated with the
responses received from the other Project Directors, and summary information from the
Project Director Interview will be presented in the evaluation report Child Trends submits
to the U.S. Department of Education. Responses to this data collection will be used only
for analytical purposes. The reports prepared for this study will summarize findings
across the sample and will not associate responses with a specific project or individual.
We will not provide information that identifies you or your project to anyone outside the

study team, except as required by law. The interview has received the appropriate
clearance from OMB (OMB number 1875-NEW).
In order to schedule the telephone interview with you, we ask that you email Dr. Martha
Zaslow, Project Director of the ECEPD Evaluation at Child Trends, with the best times
and dates in the next two weeks for participating in this 1.5 hour-long conversation.
Child Trends would like to schedule a call with you between 9 AM and 5 PM Eastern
Standard Time sometime within the following set of dates: [ENTER TWO-WEEK SPAN
OF TIME]
Enclosed is a copy of the interview questions that will be used. By reviewing the
questions ahead of time, and following along during the interview, the interview itself
will be completed with the least amount of burden to you.
For some grantees, additional telephone interviews will be arranged to go into further
depth on specific issues about program implementation and program evaluation with key
members of your project partnership and local evaluation team, respectively. At the end
of the Project Director’s Interview, the Child Trends researchers will ask for contact
information for those individuals who should be included in Project Team and Evaluation
Team group interviews, should your program be selected for this further aspect of the
national study.
If you have any questions or concerns about the evaluation and the telephone interviews,
please contact the following individuals at the U.S. Department of Education or at Child
Trends:
James Maxwell
Project Officer
U.S. Department of Education
Policy and Program Studies Service
202-401-3571
[email protected]
Dr. Martha Zaslow
Project Director
Child Trends
202-572-6032
[email protected]
The U.S. Department of Education is committed to conducting a comprehensive
examination of the ECEPD program, and we respectfully request your cooperation in this
effort. The time and attention you devote to the evaluation are critical to ensuring an
accurate representation of the ECEPD program and its effects on early childhood
educators and the children they serve. The results of the evaluation of the ECEPD
program, in turn, will provide information that can strengthen early childhood

professional development programs in the future. Thank you in advance for your full
participation in the evaluation activities.
Sincerely,

Alan Ginsburg
Director, Policy and Program Studies Service
Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development,
U.S. Department of Education

For more information about the ECEPD
Evaluation, please feel free to contact:
Dr. Martha Zaslow
Project Director
Child Trends
4301 Connecticut Ave, NW
Suite 350
Washington, DC 20008
202-572-6032
[email protected]
James P. Maxwell
Project Officer
U.S. Department of Education
Policy and Program Studies Service
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Room 6W259
Washington, DC 20202
202-401-3571
[email protected]

The 2003, 2004, and 2005 ECEPD
Grantees are located in:
Alaska

Nebraska

Arizona

New York

California

North Carolina

Connecticut

Oregon

Florida

Tennessee

Massachusetts

Texas

Michigan

Washington, DC

Rosemary Fennell
Project Manager
U.S. Department of Education
Policy and Program Studies Service
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Room 3C122
Washington, DC 20202
202-401-2425
[email protected]

EVALUATION
OF THE
EARLY CHILDHOOD
EDUCATOR
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
(ECEPD)
PROGRAM
A Cross-Site Study Conducted by

On behalf of
the U.S. Department of Education
Policy and Program Studies Service

Missouri

ED Contract Number: EC-04-CO-0038/0002

Background

A subset of projects will be chosen for two additional
interviews to follow up on key issues identified in the
Project Directors’ Interviews. One will be a group
interview administered to members of the ECEPD
project team, and one will be a group interview
administered to the ECEPD evaluation team.

This study will focus on the professional
development activities implemented by 18 ECEPD
grantees that received funds from 2003-2005. The
study will:
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Describe the structure of ECEPD
partnerships
Describe ECEPD projects’ goals and
implementation
Review the format and content of
ECEPD activities
Examine characteristics of the participants
Synthesize the results of evaluations
conducted by the ECEPD grantees
Identify promising practices in the field of
professional development for early
childhood educators

Responses to this data collection will be used only for
analytical purposes. The reports prepared for this
study will summarize findings across the sample and
will not associate responses with a specific district or
individual. Child Trends will not provide information
that identifies you or your project to anyone outside
the study team, except as required by law.

Child Trends
Child Trends has been selected by the U.S.
Department of Education as the evaluator of the
ECEPD program.
Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research
organization that is dedicated to improving the
lives of children and their families by conducting
research and providing science-based information
to improve the decisions, programs, and policies
that affect children.

ECEPD Team Interviews
In order to study these issues, Child Trends will
conduct a review of relevant literature, project
materials, grantee performance reports and
evaluations. Child Trends will also administer indepth interviews to project directors and other
project team members.

Child Trends will administer one or three interviews
to ECEPD project teams. All ECEPD Project
Directors from the 2003, 2004 and 2005 cohorts of
grantees will be invited to participate in an interview
to obtain information about the project structure,
implementation, activities, and evaluation findings.

Timeline and Findings
Child Trends will conduct interviews beginning in
July, 2007. A final report for the project will be
completed in January, 2008.

4301 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 100
Washington DC. 20008

[Date]
[ECEPD Project Director Address}
Dear ECEPD Project Director:
As you know, Child Trends has been selected by the U.S. Department of Education as the
evaluator of the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program (ECEPD).
One important piece of the evaluation involves the Project Director Interview that you
participated in on [insert date of Project Director Interview].
As we described at the end of the interview, we are selecting a subset of ECEPD grantees
from which we will gather further information about their project structure, activities and
outcomes. Your ECEPD project has been selected for these additional data collection
activities. We will be conducting two follow up interviews with members of your
ECEPD partnership as we discussed during the interview with you.
In addition, we will be conducting a review of the training materials you use in your
ECEPD program. This activity will provide a more detailed picture of the content and
structure of the professional development activities funded by the ECEPD program. The
materials you provide will be reviewed to learn more about the topics and format of the
training as well as the expectations you have for the participants completing the training
and procedures you follow for monitoring their progress. This information will be
included in our evaluation report to the U.S. Department of Education.
We are requesting examples of the following materials that convey the content and
requirements of the professional development offered in your ECEPD Program, for
instance:
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Course descriptions, curriculum, and syllabi of training courses
Materials and assignments distributed to participants
Descriptions of requirements for degree programs/credential
Descriptions of on-site activities such as mentoring or consultation
Assessment tools that are used to understand how the knowledge and skills of
the educators have changed as a result of the professional development activity
(including assessments of classroom environment and practices)

If you think that there are additional materials that would help us understand the details
of your ECEPD program that are not listed above, please submit them. To facilitate the
organization of these materials, please make copies of the attached coversheet and attach

one completed coversheet to each set of materials that you submit. Please return the
materials by [XX DATE] via [FedEx, US Mail] using the enclosed mailing label, which
will cover all postal charges.
We know this task will require time and effort from you and your staff to prepare and
organize the materials, and we thank you in advance for your participation in this
important work.
Sincerely,

Martha Zaslow
Vice President, Research
Project Director, Evaluation of the Early Childhood Professional Development Program

Project ID#______

ECEPD Materials Submission Form
Name of item:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Type of material:
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Course syllabi (specify course:_________________________________)
Course curriculum (specify course:_________________________________)
Course assignment/activity (specify course:__________________________)
Application form
Assessment tool
Evaluation protocol
CD/DVD (describe contents:______________________________________)
Videotape (describe contents:_____________________________________)
Overview materials
Other (please describe:___________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

Source:
ˆ Developed by (specify author if ECEPD project partner):
______________________________________________________________
ˆ Purchased from:
______________________________________________________________
ˆ Adapted from:
_____________________________________________________________
ˆ Other (please describe):
_____________________________________________________________

Please use this form to document each item that you submit from your
ECEPD project. This form should be stapled or attached to the top of each
submission.