J&A is working with First 5 LA and Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) on the Universal Preschool Child Outcomes Study (UPCOS 1,3,4,5,6,7) under contract to Mathematica Policy Research. UPCOS aims to ensure the school readiness of children in Los Angeles. Its efforts will contribute to understanding how children develop school readiness skills during the program and how the characteristics of the program, teachers and families are related to growth and development.

J&A contributed to the initial design of the study by working with First 5 LA and MPR in carrying out a pilot study and was then responsible for coordinating the recruitment of pre-school aged children for the purpose of training the field assessors, as well as recruiting the parents of non-LAUP children from several ethnic groups (Hispanic/Latino, African-American, Asian, Filipino and Caucasian) and conducting focus groups with them to test the data collection instruments ultimately to be used in the main study. Over the course of the study, J&A has served in a number of capacities from facilitating focus groups to testing questionnaires via cognitive interviews, to training field assessors.

Additionally, the study has employed the use of a number of observation tools; our team has used them to assess classroom and teaching quality as well as training teachers and providers in their use.