MDRC has partnered with Acelero Learning, Inc., to form a research-practice partnership that aims to strengthen Head Start programming across the country. Acelero Learning, Inc., is a national network of Head Start programs that provides Head Start and Early Head Start services to three- and four-year-old children and their families. Through our research-practice partnership, MDRC and Acelero Learning, Inc., will document learning gains for Head Start students, examine how the pandemic affected these students’ learning and development, identify programmatic and implementation conditions that predict gains in child outcomes, and understand how family engagement practices explain children’s development across time.

Findings from this project will inform Head Start and early learning providers across the country of the key programmatic factors that support the learning and development of children experiencing poverty.