Overview

The faculty of the McCormick Tribune Center for Early Childhood Leadership provide technical assistance to early childhood programs in three ways: organizational climate assessment, NAEYC accreditation facilitation, and program quality assessment.

An organizational climate assessment of the quality of work life for staff has been conducted in over 2,000 centers in the United States and Canada using the Early Childhood Work Environment Survey. The process is fairly straightforward: administrative, teaching, and support staff of a program complete the survey and return it to the Center for computer processing. In approximately four weeks the program receives a Work Environment Profile detailing the collective perceptions of the staff along ten dimensions of organizational climate: collegiality, opportunities for professional growth, supervisor support, clarity, reward system, decision-making, goal consensus, task orientation, physical environment, and innovativeness. The Profile comes with an interpretation of results, providing suggestions for improving the climate in each dimension.

Through grant-funded initiatives as well as individual contracts with agencies, faculty of the Center are available to assist programs pursuing NAEYC center accreditation. The models for these accreditation facilitation initiatives have varied greatly from on-site support to monthly meetings with directors on topics relating to the self-study process.

Faculty of the Center are also available on a consultant basis for assessing the quality of early childhood program practices using the Program Administration Scale (PAS). The PAS measures the quality of leadership and management practices in early childhood programs in ten areas: human resource development; personnel cost and allocation; center operations; child assessment; fiscal management; program planning and evaluation; family partnerships; marketing and public relations; technology; and staff qualifications.