Follow-Up Data on Parents of Selected Even Start Programs in Texas
2003 and 2004

Don F. Seaman, Research Scientist
Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning

Because of concerns for demonstrating accountability in Even Start family literacy programs in Texas, staff in the Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning designed a research project to document how investment of federal funds in Even Start provides returns on that investment. Since Even Start provides basic educational experiences to both parents and children, it was determined to first implement a pilot study to assess the impact of the program on the parents. To accomplish this task, a sequence of activities was implemented.

1. For the pilot-study, the research team was limited to only those programs that the team was evaluating because the team had access to the staff and parents of those programs and not to others in the state.
2. Once the staff of a program agreed to participate in the study, all parents who had left the program for whatever reason during the years the program had been operating were assigned a number beginning with “1” and ending with whatever total number of parents had left the program, usually around 100. The upper number depended upon how long the program had been operating – first, second, or third four-year cycle of funding. The longer the program had been operating, the higher the number would be.
3. Once the parents were numbered, a table of random numbers was employed to select 30-35 parents to be involved in a telephone interview in the acquisition of the desired data.
4. Program staff members were then provided the interview guides and the numbers of the families to be contacted. Two samples were drawn because it was anticipated that some families had moved away, some had changed telephone numbers, and some could not be reached for other reasons. One research team member trained whoever was designated to make the telephone calls (usually parent educators) for each local program in the proper use of the interview guide. Local program staff had to conduct the interviews because the parents would not talk to strangers (the research team), nor should they do so.
5. Each interview required about 10-12 minutes, depending upon the length of the responses by the parents on the open-end questions.
6. Parents interviewed ranged from one through eight years away from the program.
7. Once 30 interviews had been completed, they were sent to the research team for analysis. The results are found below.

In reviewing the data in all three tables, please remember that these families consist of parents who did not have a high school education and whose children were “at risk” of never completing high school. By attending school together, the children begin to value education because they see their parents pursuing it every day. In most cases, these parents are the first in their families to ever enter achieve a high school education, let alone enter college. They probably do not even know anyone who attended college, but they have learned what a basic education can do for them. Some of them have now ventured into college or some other kind of post-secondary education or training.

Even though employment of parents is not a goal of Even Start legislation, it is quite evident from the data below that this program can have a dramatic effect on the employment and income levels of parents who acquire the knowledge and skills to become employed or to become better employed. Is there another program that can produce the numbers below, especially when employment is not, legislatively, one of its goals?

*first-cycle program

*first cycle program **(increase of 11%)

Through Even Start, families usually become less dependent on public assistance, and become contributors to society, not dependent upon taxpayers for survival. However, programs in their first cycle of funding may not reach that status because during that cycle, the families are “most in need” of the assistance available to them. Additionally, some parents are unaware of the public assistance available to them, especially WIC (Women, Infants, and Children), and Public Housing. After the parents become more educated through the program, they are more likely to become employed and leave the public assistance program.

These data are from only 9 Even Start programs in Texas. Because they were not selected randomly from the 90 in the state, they are not necessarily truly representative of all programs in Texas. However, conversations from evaluators of other programs indicate that similar findings are likely throughout the state.

Other findings from this same study included:

• In general, parents in the study reported that their children in school improved through better grades, better attendance, and learning English.
• Parents reported that they still help their children with learning activities more often and read more to their children than before they were enrolled in Even Start.
• In all programs, there has been an increase in the percent of parents who volunteer either in their school or in their religious organization.