In the early part of the decade, states' public investment in early childhood education programs reached an all-time high. Now, facing huge deficits that threaten program funding, the perennial question is more important than ever: How do we know what works, for whom it works, and how it works?
 
Child development theory and research suggest that high quality early childhood programs have positive impacts on children, yet these positive outcomes are not seen across all types of programs. The large, well-financed system of diverse programs funded by Illinois’ Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) provide a unique opportunity to investigate a number of questions:

•  how system and policy factors affect child outcomes in early childhood programs;
•  how best to deliver early childhood services for children birth to age five;
• how those services relate to later educational and developmental outcomes.

The Illinois Birth to Five Evaluation will explore ECBG’s funding priorities, multiple methods of service delivery, quality program standards and other system and policy factors to deepen our understanding about what works in early childhood programming and how to improve the ECBG initiatives.