Smart Start Evaluation Team

Smart Start is North Carolina's nationally recognized comprehensive initiative to improve its early care and education system with the goal of ensuring that all children under kindergarten age are healthy and prepared for school. For the first 10 years of Smart Start (1993-2003), a team of researchers at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted the statewide evaluation of Smart Start. Members of the multidisciplinary evaluation team were from UNC's School of Education, Public Health, and Social Work. The team conducted dozens of studies of Smart Start and developed an evaluation notebook to assist local Smart Start Partnership evaluators.

Smart Start is a multi-disciplinary, comprehensive, community based initiative designed to serve North Carolina children under age 6 and their families. The major long-range goal of Smart Start is to ensure that all children enter school healthy and prepared to succeed.

To achieve this goal, local county Smart Start partnerships have focused both their attention and funds on three major areas of service implementation: child care, family support programs, and health services. The evaluation team considered changes in these three areas to be intermediate-term outcomes; that is, changes that should lead to the longer-range goal of increased preparedness for school. Therefore, major evaluation projects have included measuring changes in child care quality, family functioning, and children's receipt of health services, as well as the long-term outcome of school success. Additional evaluation projects have focused on other components of the Smart Start Initiative, such as the planning and implementation process of partnership start-up, collaboration among service agencies, the public-private partnership in communities, and special studies addressing particular services funded through Smart Start.

For more information on Smart Start, visit the North Carolina Smart Start web site.

Timeline of Smart Start Evaluation Activities of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute

YEAR	A C T I V I T I E S
2001-2002	Child care center quality	Pre-K outcomes in child care of varying quality	Technical assistance to improve quality	Quarterly Report	Evaluation Assistance
2000-2001	Kindergarten parent interview	Smart Start/Bright Beginnings effects on child outcomes	Observational study of school readiness	Smart Start effects on county collaboration over time	Quarterly report	Evaluation assistance
1999-2000	Survey of kindergartners' skills	Smart Start/Bright Beginnings descriptive study	Child care center quality	Pilot test of child care & family indicators study	Quarterly report	Evaluation assistance
1998-1999	Effects of SS child care on kindergartners' skills	Kindergartners' health	Child care center quality	Family case studies	County collaboration	Quarterly report	Evaluation assistance
1997-1998	Survey of kindergartners' skills	Effects of SS child care on kindergartners' skills-pilot	Family child care quality	Feasibility of client info. system	Child care center playground safety	Public-private partnerships	Quarterly report	Evaluation assistance
1996-1997	Child care center quality	County Collaboration	Parent-business involvement	Quarterly report
1995-1996	Survey of kindergartners' skills	Kindergartners' health	Lessons about implementing Smart Start	Reinventing government study
1994-1995	Child care center quality	Descriptive study of Smart Start (SS) families	Pilot collaboration study	Lessons learned about the planning process

school readiness studies

child care studies

other studies

quarterly report

evaluation assistance

Smart Start Evaluation Team
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute
105 Smith Level Rd.
UNC-CH CB# 8180
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-8180