Informing the Performance-Based Contract Between First 5 LA and LAUP: Child Progress in the 2010-2011 Program Year

In February 2004, First 5 LA adopted a 10-year Universal Preschool Master Plan to increase the availability of quality preschool spaces in Los Angeles County and created Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) to implement the plan. Because a central objective of LAUP is to support early learning and development, First 5 LA and LAUP have begun to track the progress of children during their year in LAUP programs as an element of the performance-based contract between the two organizations. Beginning in the 2009-2010 program year, Mathematica Policy Research worked with First 5 LA and LAUP to identify the domains of development First 5 LA and LAUP sought to track, to identify appropriate measures, and to set targets for progress across the year to be applied in the 2011-2012 program year. During the 2010-2011 program year, as part of Phase 4 of the Universal Preschool Child Outcomes Study (UPCOS-4), Mathematica conducted a descriptive study of child progress and tested the validity of the selected targets. In this report, we describe children’s progress from fall to spring of 2010-2011 program year, outline the targets that were set for the 2011-2012 year, and assess the validity of those targets.