State governments are largely responsible for most early childhood education (ECE) policies (e.g., state pre-K, Child Care and Development Fund [CCDF]). However, multiple ECE funding streams and governing agencies within a state can lead to misaligned policies and incoherent systems. Thus, there exists great variability within and across states in ECE policy implementation. In our study we descriptively analyzed nationally, publicly available data to assess alignment within state policy systems on three policy levers often used in K-12 education research: state ECE standards, curricula, and assessment, the latter of which we operationalized as states’ quality rating and improvement systems. Additionally, we examined the extent to which the governance of our focal policy levers is dispersed across, or housed within, different state-level institutions or agencies (i.e., alignment via governance). Our descriptive analyses reveal little and limited alignment between a state's policy levers of standards, curriculum, and assessment, and between state preschool policies—state pre-K and CCDF—with respect to curricular guidance. We also find wide variation in the number of ECE governing agencies within a state. The findings indicate potential for confusion around policies for early learning providers and demonstrate largely misaligned or poorly specified policies that are dispersed at the state level. We hope that researchers will continue to refine this initial model of alignment in the context of a rapidly changing ECE policy field.

中文翻译：

---

幼儿教育的标准、课程和评估：检查多个州系统之间的一致性


州政府主要负责大多数幼儿教育 (ECE) 政策（例如州学前教育、儿童保育和发展基金 [CCDF]）。然而，一个州内的多个儿童早教资金流和管理机构可能会导致政策不一致和系统不连贯。因此，各州内部和各州之间的儿童早教政策实施存在很大差异。在我们的研究中，我们对全国公开数据进行了描述性分析，以评估州政策体系内 K-12 教育研究中经常使用的三种政策杠杆的一致性：州 ECE 标准、课程和评估，后者我们将其作为州质量来实施评级和改进系统。此外，我们还研究了我们的重点政策杠杆的治理在不同国家级机构或机构中分散或安置的程度（即通过治理进行协调）。我们的描述性分析表明，州的标准、课程和评估政策杠杆之间以及州学前教育政策（州学前班和 CCDF）之间在课程指导方面的一致性很少且有限。我们还发现一个州内 ECE 管理机构的数量存在很大差异。调查结果表明早期教育提供者的政策可能会出现混乱，并表明分散在州一级的政策很大程度上不一致或具体规定不明确。我们希望研究人员能够在快速变化的欧洲经委会政策领域的背景下继续完善这一初步的协调模型。