Recently, J&A began work on First 5 LA’s Comprehensive Professional Development Evaluation under a subcontract with Mathematica Policy Research. The evaluation will serve three primary purposes:
- documenting outcomes related to the six professional development programs for early educators funded by First 5 LA;
- generating information that can be used by the First 5 LA Commission to inform policy, programmatic and resource allocation decisions as related to workforce investments; and
- providing lessons learned that can be used for ongoing program improvement.
In this longitudinal study, J&A will assist in documenting outcomes associated with each of six professional development (PD) programs and determine impacts of four of them. We will contribute to developing the evaluation plan and study instruments in the first year of the evaluation and, from 2014-2017, will be conducting focus groups, cognitive interviews, observations and training.
