The Connor Early Childhood Program is a child care center that serves children from different backgrounds settings. It serves children from different ethnicity and does not discriminate on the basis of economic status as to either poor or rich families. This program aims at providing education and assessment to children in different classrooms of 4 years old. They provide different types of learning programs and time has come where they need accreditation from NAEYC. There are various evaluations that have been conducted by Connor Street to help them know better about the services that they give to both the poor, middle class and rich children ( Wortham, 2006) . These evaluations gave data that turned to be very important not only for evaluation but for the audience who are teachers, in this case, to know areas that they need to improve and where the effort placed is sufficient.
The first evaluation carried out (Evaluation 1) involved the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. This was reliable which had two major objectives. It was designed to assess the language and literary level of the children under this program. The results for the Connor Street 4-year-old children were given after the test. These were the candidates and all data that was used for analysis and request for accreditation was based on their performance. The results showed that the 4 years old children at Connor Street scored 62 percentile. According to analysis, this score is way above the average if marking was done out of 100%.
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The scores could be further broken into demographics. Demography basically means categorizing according to the regions where the parents of the children are coming from ( Duncan, & Magnuson, 2013) . Important to note, the teachers gave this same test to children from different socioeconomic status. As mentioned earlier, this included the poor and middle class, and data for their performance was as shown.
| Demography | Average Percentile |
| Low Income | 41 |
| Middle-income | 76 |
| Spanish leaving families | (41+76)/2 |
The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was made available in more than one language. It carried out in both English and Spanish. This move is very important to the teachers. As a teacher, it is important to consider the language that the learners know better. This will help to fully assess the potential of the learner as compared to when a foreign language that the learners do not understand well is used. To add, the test was very important for the determination of accreditation since it brought a good way through which the receptive vocabulary of the children could be tested. In any learning setting, the teachers can use various devised teachings that will help them in predicting strong kindergarten readiness. The data from this specific test could enhance the teachers to strongly predict kindergarten readiness.
Fig 1: Evaluation 1 result. (Demographic breakdown)
This data on the results represented the prowess of various children. These are children from different background and it is upon the teachers to determine if the program is going to be beneficial to them. This is what the data was based on. To add, the teachers could use these results to determine if children are ready in kindergarten. Various evaluations are going to help in determining the quality of Connor Street. The three major evaluations for this case are authority, purpose and intended audience, and lastly accuracy and reliability.
Authority is vital in determining the quality of any phenomenon. In this case, we are going to critically look at the authors, whether an individual or organization after which credulity will be checked. The program has been developed by the Connor Street Childhood Program who has employed various teachers to teach different classes ( Wortham, 2006) . It will be important to look at the qualification level of the teachers and decide if they are good for the teaching of the 4 years old children in separate classes. As a teacher, there are certain education qualifications that need to be attained in order to provide quality educational services to children. More important to note, the quality of the teacher also contributes so much to the success of a child. Therefore, chances are high that a well-qualified teacher will produce quality results in children.
The second evaluation that the group relied on was “purpose and intended audience.” This seemed to be the major form of evaluation that could be used to determine the quality of Connor Street. The results that were expected were going to tell a lot whether the teaching offered by Connor Street was appropriate. The results spoke volumes as to whether the program could be accredited by NAEYC or not. The purpose of the evaluation is usually to provide information and persuade. The major purpose of the program was to be known and determine whether it was effective in society and could proceed or not. In this case, the evaluation was conducted so as to get to know the truth about whether the program was offering information.
It is usually the role of teachers to teach children as a survey in evaluation 6 shows. According to this evaluation, it is the teacher in collaboration with the parents who should step in and help children in case of any problem. For example, when children are undergoing a serious and challenging behavior, it is the responsibility of both the teachers and parents or guardians to work as a team and come up with an individual plan that will help the child ( Duncan, & Magnuson, 2013) . It is in this area under “relationships” that everyone seemed to agree according to data given of a total of 8 scores straight “Yes”. Is Connor Street providing quality information? This is the first question that will be asked. The purpose of Connor Street is to provide education and knowledge to young children. Knowledge is information, and if the results obtained are excellent, then this program is good to give a “green” or what we call “go-ahead sign.” Results show that most of the children are performing well, and this is essential in determining the quality of Connor Street. Teachers are mandated to teach children and the results will be vital tools to judge as to whether they are doing their work well or not. Excellence will mean that the teachers are doing their work effectively and that the program is appropriate for the age bracket it is designed for.
Accuracy and reliability are other important factors in the evaluation of Connor Street and this is something that teachers must always be aware of. The right information needs to be developed in the right manner and passed to the learners in a way that it will benefit them. Connor Street targets young children and as this happens, the teachers should know the underlying responsibilities that they have to play. The evaluation was done and results given in percentile. This is according to the Connor Street teachers. If anything happens or any complaint then, the first people to be contacted who will be reliable are the teachers who are in charge of different classes. The teachers should be in a position to verify the information and statistical data on children’s performance at Connor Street. This is the same thing that applies to other senior schools that provide education to various students. It is the teacher who will be in charge of verifying the results obtained.
There are various trends in the major findings from the data presented. From the findings, it can be seen that the whole group of the Connor Street 4-year-olds scored 62 percent as a group. When further analyzed into different demographic regions where the children come from, the trend revealed that the children from low-income families had an average of 41 percent while their other counterparts performed considerably better. This data is important as it will help to show the types of children who should be given special attention when teaching ( Wortham, 2006) . The data tells teachers that they should consider those children from low-income regions and know how to handle them. These are children who are faced with various problems compared to those from rich or middle-income families who are given all that they require. Teachers are required to know that they handle different types of children. The finding of the children’s demography impacted the performance dataset negatively. This is crystal clear and justified by the percentile performance mentioned earlier. Among this group of 4-year-old children that is highly diverse, those from the poor families show the lowest performance.
There are some children who cannot be able to even afford basic educational needs such as pens and books. This is because of the poverty from home and some of them do not even eat well. Some of these children even lack better nutrition and maybe stressed up in class due to a lack of food at home. This data is important since it reveals how conditions at home affect the quality of education that children can get. This is something that teachers can clearly learn from the data given which is very important. In order to help in such cases, teachers need to try and understand all their students ( Duncan, & Magnuson, 2013) . Like it is said that people are uniquely different, so it is to the children or learners. From the dataset, teachers should not assume that all the children are the same when teaching them. This implies that teachers have to take their time, study all the children, and understand them after which they will be handled according to their situation.
The Connor street program is of high quality. This is because it is designed in a structure that actually helps to predict kindergarten readiness. This is from the different series of tests that it offers to children such as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT4) and many more. It effectively responds to the needs of the children and parents from the specified teachings and tests. The parents can use the results to know more about their children and therefore it effectively responds to them. To add, this program impacts teachers in a positive manner since it allows them to understand various types of students and provide a quality learning experience to them.
The graphs shown below have been derived from Evaluation 7, which deals with assessment family survey. The baseline for the study is 29 parents. This is important for the performance of children in school and will also make it possible for teachers to understand children better right from home. Connected with evaluation 1, the students whose parents have frequent relation with teachers will definitely perform better.
To summarize, the greatest strength of the Connor Street program is that it takes consideration of different types of children and not biased in any manner. Those from low and middle-income are given the opportunity in the program and teachers can learn how to handle them. It is not designed for a specific type of children or children from a given one demography and this is further justified by availing tests in both English and Spanish. This program is also proficient in organizing various tests and predicting future prowess of children as shown by the action of kindergarten readiness. One important area where the program needs to improve is to increase classes and even enroll more children from other ethnic groups. This is vital so that the teachers will even know how to deal with more variety of children from different backgrounds ( Wortham, 2006) . The short-term goal to address this area will be recruiting more children and more teachers. The long-term goals will be to build more structures to cater for the high number of children who will be received.
References
Wortham, S. C. (2006). Early childhood curriculum: Developmental bases for learning and teaching . Kevin M. Davis. http://digilib.stiem.ac.id:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/379
Case-Smith, J., & Holland, T. (2009). Making decisions about service delivery in early childhood programs. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools . https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.27.2.109
Duncan, G. J., & Magnuson, K. (2013). Investing in preschool programs. Journal of Economic Perspectives , 27 (2), 109-32. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/abs/10.1044/0161-1461%282009/08-0023%29
Kontos, S. (1999). Preschool teachers’ talk, roles, and activity settings during free play. Early childhood research quarterly , 14 (3), 363-382. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200699000162
