How were grantees/delegate agencies selected?
The sample used for this study is intended to be representative of all Head Start grantees/delegate agencies operating in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Some grantees, however, were not eligible to participate in the study. As noted above, programs operated by Tribal Organizations and migrant grantees were excluded, as were children currently or previously enrolled in Early Head Start. Also excluded were new grantees/delegate agencies that had only been in operation for less than 2 years, to minimize the potential that early start-up issues affecting the stability of program operations might impede the study. To help ensure national representation, the remaining grantees and delegate agencies were organized into geographic clusters by: the availability of state-funded comprehensive preschool programs; region of the country; urban vs. rural location; and, the race/ethnicity of the children being served. From this list, we randomly selected
