| Principal Investigator: | Daniel G. Schroeder, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Office of the Attorney General of Texas |
| Project Duration: | June 2024 – August 2026 |
| Description: | The Texas Child Support Guidelines project is being conducted by the Ray Marshall Center under an agreement with the Office of the Attorney General of Texas (OAG). Federal and state laws require the OAG to establish guidelines for child support, and to review these guidelines every four years to ensure their adequacy in determining appropriate child support award amounts in divorce cases and other suits affecting parent-child relations (SAPCR). The review will utilize up to date, detailed economic analysis of the cost of raising children in Texas to 1) determine whether the existing guidelines result in fair child support award amounts, and to 2) propose a workable income-shares model to develop new guidelines that take into account both parents’ income levels. Additional topics to be addressed include how to handle parenting-time adjustments, child care costs, and whether a true limit to child support exists, and at what level it should be set. |
| Reports Available: |
Child Care Market Rate/Cost of Quality Studies
| Principal Investigators: | Daniel G. Schroeder, PhD (Principal Investigator) – Ray Marshall Center Monica Faulkner (Principal Investigator), Laura Marra (Co-Principal Investigator) – Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing |
| Sponsor: | Texas Workforce Commission |
| Project Duration: | July 2022 – June 2025 |
| Description: | Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin will provide services in order to complete two annual studies for the Texas Workforce Commission. The Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work will manage data collection from child care providers. The Ray Marshall Center at the LBJ School of Public Affairs manages the data analysis and reporting.
The purpose of the Child Care Market Rate Study is to create statistical summaries of market rates for child care for the entire state of Texas and for each of the 28 Local Workforce Development Areas. The purpose of the Cost of Quality Study is to understand the cost of providing quality child care in the state of Texas. The purpose is to provide estimates of how much more additional funding, in terms of daily rates, should be paid to providers who meet quality standards to care for children, relative to how much providers who meet minimal standards are paid. |
| Reports Available: | The reports for this project are published through the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing at the University of Texas at Austin’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work. The following reports are available on their website.
2023 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey |
HPOG Secondary Data Analysis
| Principal Investigator: | Christopher T. King, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation |
| Project Duration: | December 2019 – December 2021 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center will evaluate the variation in program characteristics – including program components, implementation features, local context, and participant traits – to explore which characteristics are associated with Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program participant’s healthcare profession career pathway outcomes. This research will address the following questions:
Similar to the previous research on the impact of HPOG program characteristics on educational achievement (Peck et al., 2018 and Walton et al., 2019), this research expects to identify supports such as childcare and transportation assistance, tuition, and other financial assistance, as well as employment supports and emergency assistance associated with CNA participant achievements along a career pathway. Practitioners, policymakers, funders, and researchers may be interested in which combination of program components, implementation strategies, participant characteristics, and local context may impact a CNA participant to pursue the next step along a healthcare profession career pathway. Insights from this research can inform future program design and implementation within the broader field of entry level healthcare provider workforce development. |
| Reports Available: |
Chris King keynotes CareerAdvance® 2019 graduation ceremony
RMC Senior Research Scientist Dr. Chris King was the keynote speaker at CareerAdvance®‘s 2019 graduation ceremony held at the Tulsa Technology Center on September 9th. Chris was an instrumental member of the team that designed CareerAdvance®, a sectoral, career pathway workforce strategy for the parents of children served by Tulsa’s early childhood education programs in 2009 and is part of the team conducting the evaluation of the program for CAP Tulsa via funding from the US Depart of Health and Human Services. Janae Bradford, Assistant Director of Family Advancement for CAP Tulsa, emceed the event.
This year, 108 graduates walked the stage to be awarded certifications in 12 different career tracks. Certifications included seven Development Associates (CDA), seventeen Nursing Assistants (CNA), twelve Medication Aides (CMA), two Advance Mediation Aids (Advanced CMA), three Advanced Unlicensed Assistants, five Central Services Technicians (CST), ten Electrocardiogram Monitor Technicians (EKG Technician), twenty Phlebotomy graduates, twenty Medical Assistants, three Surgical Technologists, seven Medical Coders, and two Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN).
Since 2008, the Ray Marshall Center has had an ongoing partnership with CAP Tulsa and Northwestern University (as well as partners at NYU and Columbia) to evaluate CareerAdvance®. You can view the details of the partnership here.
Photos courtesy of Madison Strategies Group.
L-R: Erika Saldivar, Rachel Lhungdim, Amber Lipp and Patrena Jeffers
L-R: Ashley Garza, Juana Hess, Madison Beasley, Jamese Brown; Top row L-R: Violet Houston and Hollee Whitehead; Bottom left: Quiara Scott
Sandie Jimenez-Coop
L-R: Toniesha Cotton, Brooke Mcknight, Brittany Newton
Child Care Cost of Quality Modeling Study
| Principal Investigator: | Daniel Schroeder, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Texas Workforce Commission |
| Project Duration: | May 2019 – April 2022 |
| Description: | Researchers from the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will conduct a study of the cost of providing quality child care in the state of Texas, the purpose of which is to provide estimates of how much more additional funding, in terms of daily rates, should be paid to providers who meet quality standards to care for children, relative to how much providers who do not meet such standards are paid. The study will be done in conjunction with the Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing (TICFW), who will be responsible for consulting on the design of a pair of surveys to capture important quality factors and pricing information, and fielding the surveys to carefully selected samples of home- and center-based child care facilities. |
| Reports Available: | The reports for this project are published through the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing at the University of Texas at Austin’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work. The following reports are available on their website. |
Chris King co-authors 2Gen policy briefs with Ascend at the Aspen Institute
RMC Senior Research Scientist Dr. Chris King co-authored several two-generation (2Gen) policy briefs recently released by Ascend at the Aspen Institute. Chris, along with researchers from Northwestern University, Columbia University, New York University, Temple University, and Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, partnered with Ascend to release new findings from long-term studies of CareerAdvance®, a program developed and run by the Community Action Project of Tulsa County (CAP).
The first brief, an impact analysis, explores the effects of a 2Gen program on low-income parents’ education, employment, and psychological well-being.
The second brief, a new study, explores the effects of a 2Gen program on children’s outcomes in Head Start.
*The Ray Marshall Center has had an ongoing partnership with CAP Tulsa and Northwestern University (as well as partners at NYU and Columbia) to evaluate a sectoral, career pathway workforce strategy for the parents of young children in high-quality early childhood education in Tulsa. Center researchers led a team that designed the strategy in 2008-2009. You can view the details of the partnership here.
Pre-K 4 San Antonio Impact Study
| Principal Investigators: | Greg Cumpton, PhD and Michael Villarreal, MPP (Co-Principal Investigator) |
| Sponsor(s): | City of San Antonio |
| Project Duration: | March 2017 – December 2018 |
| Description: | Since the start of Texas’ public prekindergarten program, policymakers and education leaders have attempted to raise its quality. A recent survey of public prekindergarten programs found that 49 percent of local school districts offered students a full-day of prekindergarten; while 59 percent of districts adopted policies that limit class size, staff-to-student ratios, or both (Children at Risk, 2014). More recently, Governor Abbott has successfully advocated for funding to demonstrate and evaluate the effects of higher quality prekindergarten on student outcomes. At the local level, the City of San Antonio initiated an ambitious plan to demonstrate the value of high-quality prekindergarten by funding four demonstration centers, professional development for public school prekindergarten teachers, and grants to school districts to increase the quality of their programs.
Pre-K for SA (PK4SA) is the city agency leading the implementation of San Antonio’s prekindergarten investment. PK4SA has hired the Ray Marshall Center to be its research and evaluation partner to provide its first study of the effects of its high-quality prekindergarten on near and long-terms student outcomes. Moreover, PK4SA is engaging Ray Marshall Center to conduct its evaluation of PK4SA within a larger study of Texas’ public prekindergarten program with the goal of determining how the quality of public prekindergarten programs can be incrementally improved to have longer lasting positive effects on student outcomes. High-quality early childhood education has proven to be a cost-efficient strategy for increasing the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of participating students. This study extends the current research on early education by investigating heterogeneous effects on long-term student outcomes. This study will explore if certain programmatic aspects of prekindergarten have a greater effect on student outcomes than others. It will also explore if all student subgroups benefit from public prekindergarten and if certain groups benefit more than others. This study uses data from the state’s student longitudinal data system, which includes student outcomes from prekindergarten through their postsecondary education and employment. This study also benefits from the cooperation of local school districts in Bexar County who have agreed to share district tests of prekindergarten and kindergarten students. This supplemental data will be used in a regression discontinuity analysis to check the robustness of statewide results that are produced from a regression analysis using propensity score matching and fixed effect techniques. |
| Reports Available: |
Dr. King participates in Ascend Program Convening
Dr. Chris King participated in the Ascend Program’s Convening on “Advancing Solutions for Children and Families” in Aspen Oct. 5-7. He is part of a working group helping draft an Ascend working paper “Postsecondary Education and Student Parents: A Two-Generation Approach for Educational Success and Economic Empowerment” that will be published by the Aspen Institute in the coming months. Chris is an inaugural Ascend Fellow, one of a select group of 20 leaders from across the country who are pioneering two-generation approaches to move families beyond poverty.
Chris King gives the keynote talk at Siemer Institute Summit
Dr. Chris King gave a keynote talk on “The Promise of Emerging Two-Generation Strategies” at the Siemer Institute Summit at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Center on Sept. 21st. The Summit was attended by United Way grantees of the Siemer Foundation from more than 40 communities around the country. You can view his presentation here.
Institutes of Higher Education Capacity Survey
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD and Monica Faulkner, PhD, LMSW |
| Sponsor: | University of Texas Health Science Center and Texas Early Learning Council |
| Project Duration: | February 2013 – August 2013 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center in collaboration with the Child and Family Research Institute at the UT Social Work department are conducting The Institutes of Higher Education (IHE) Capacity Survey funded by the Texas Early Learning Council. The purpose of the survey is to assess the level of preparedness of new professionals in the early childhood care and education (ECCE) field. The project will survey providers of ECCE working in different settings as well as administrators of higher education programs offering certificates and degrees in the field of ECCE. The research team led by Dr. Heath Prince includes Drs. Monica Faulkner and Daniel Schroeder who have extensive experience in conducting research in the field of ECCE. |
| Reports Available: | Texas Early Childhood Care and Education: Professional Preparation – Survey Data Report Authors: Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources Date: June 2013 Publication Type: Report, 29pp. Texas Early Childhood Care and Education: Institutes of Higher Education – Survey Data Report Texas Early Childhood Care and Education: Institutes of Higher Education – Capacity Survey Final Report |
