The same data- and evidence-driven approach that was made famous by a former baseball general manager would dramatically improve the 50-year-old federal preschool program for young children, says a report written in partnership with Head Start advocates and good governance think tanks.
For example, Head Start needs to start investing more in research so that it can figure out the practices of the most effective Head Start centers and find a way to replicate them across the country, according to the report “Moneyball for Head Start.” Currently, a quarter of a percent of Head Start’s $8.6 billion budget is spent on research and evaluation, and that should be boosted to 1 percent, the report says.
The Office of Head Start should also be more transparent in reporting the performance of its approximately 1,600 grantees, which together serve more than 1 million children. Right now, the federal office collects a great deal of information about grantees, but that data is not shared in a way that could spur improvements, the report contends.