![Two adults and two toddlers play with toys on the floor of a daycare classroom. The room has cubbies, backpacks, and colorful decorations on the walls.](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Ellis-1-1000x667.jpg")
Public Sector Solutions, Children & Families
Key Takeaway
Every year, governments invest billions of dollars — $25 billion in federal funding alone — in early childhood programs and collect enormous amounts of data about them.¹ Yet too often, that data is used to satisfy reporting requirements rather than to answer a more important question: how can we better support children and families?
Early childhood systems, the mix of child care, pre-K, and family support services for children before they start kindergarten, collect an enormous amount of data, driven largely by compliance requirements such as licensing, subsidy administration, and grant reporting. As the National Head Start Association highlights, “Programs generate large amounts of administrative data, but much of it is used primarily for compliance rather than continuous improvement.”² The result is a gap between the data that is collected and the insight policymakers and providers need to know who is being served, what services are delivered, and which interventions truly improve outcomes. For the last decade, Social Finance’s Public Sector Solutions practice has worked with governments to close exactly this kind of gap, helping them move from compliance-driven data systems to ones that support learning, decision-making, and continuous improvement.
This gap between data collection and data use exists at the federal, state, and local levels — and some of the most instructive examples of how to close it are emerging closest to the ground.
Federal data systems: Accountability at scale
At the federal level, early childhood programs such as Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and Preschool Development Grants Birth-to-Five require extensive data reporting. States and providers are required to collect information on child enrollment, demographics, workforce characteristics, service utilization, and program participation to support accountability and funding decisions. Despite generating significant amounts of data, these programs often struggle to translate information into programmatic learning and improvement. At the same time, initiatives such as the National Head Start Association’s Data Design Initiative signal a growing recognition that data can serve a broader purpose — not just documenting activities but helping programs identify what is working and continuously improve outcomes for children and families.³
State level: Turning data into policy insights
State governments operate much of the early childhood infrastructure, including licensing providers, administering child care subsidies, overseeing pre-K programs, and supporting workforce initiatives. As a result, states are often responsible for making decisions that affect the quality, accessibility, and effectiveness of services available to children and families. Increasingly, states are investing in stronger data systems to better understand how these programs are functioning and where improvements are needed.
In Connecticut, Social Finance worked with the Office of Early Childhood to evaluate the state’s Preschool Development Grant by developing a results framework, identifying key performance indicators, and tracking progress across initiatives designed to improve school readiness. As the project team noted, “The evaluation framework allows Connecticut to assess progress toward improving access, quality, and coordination across the early childhood system.”⁴
In Texas, Social Finance partnered with the Texas Workforce Commission to better understand the child care workforce. Through a survey of more than 1,100 child care directors, the project gathered information on workforce challenges, compensation, and operational conditions across the state. The resulting dashboards and analyses provided a clearer picture of the challenges facing providers and helped inform statewide workforce policy strategies. Findings pointed to opportunities to expand benefits access, simplify professional development systems, invest in retention efforts, and clarify career pathways for early educators.
Together, these examples demonstrate how state-level data can move beyond compliance and reporting to inform strategic decisions, helping policymakers better target resources and strengthen early childhood systems.
Program level: Using data within early childhood organizations
While federal and state data systems play an important role in informing policy and resource allocation, some of the most important opportunities for learning and improvement exist at the program level. Yet many early childhood providers still lack robust internal data systems, relying instead on fragmented tools and compliance-driven reporting. Organizations that invest in integrated data systems can gain deeper insight into child development, classroom quality, family engagement, and operational performance, enabling them to continuously improve services for children and families.
Two Boston-based early childhood organizations — Horizons for Homeless Children and Ellis Early Learning — offer instructive examples of what it looks like when programs get this right.
![An adult shows four children how to use a small orange robot on a table in a classroom setting.](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Copy-of-Untitled-2-e1784737191799-500x344.jpg")
Horizons for Homeless Children: A 2Gen model for learning
Over the last five years, Horizons for Homeless Children (Horizons), a Boston nonprofit providing early education and family support to children experiencing homelessness, has built a data system that reflects its two-generation (2Gen) model, capturing both child-level classroom data and family-level data and, importantly, connecting the two. Its early education program is paired with a Family Partnership Program that supports parents in areas like employment, education, and financial stability. In a field where program data is often collected primarily for compliance, Horizons uses data not just to document its work, but to continuously learn and improve.
In the classroom, Horizons’ curriculum and instruction emphasize socio-emotional development over early academic achievement, grounded in research that socio-emotional regulation lays the foundation for learning and long-term success. Horizons’ approach to data collection reflects this prioritization. By tracking whether teachers receive consistent early relational coaching, implement curriculum with fidelity, and create individualized plans tailored to each child’s developmental needs, Horizons moves beyond a nominal commitment to students’ socio-emotional success. Child assessments like DECA reinforce this approach by both measuring students’ developmental status and equipping teachers with strategies to strengthen socio-emotional regulation. This systematic tracking cascades from leadership goals to individual classrooms and is transparently monitored, shifting socio-emotional development from a stated aim to a measured, managed priority.
Alongside classroom data, Horizons collects information on families and the support they receive. This includes both quantitative indicators, such as income and savings, and more qualitative measures, such as a parent’s confidence and sense of stability. The organization is increasingly focused on how to use this data more intentionally, with regular review cycles to understand what is working and where programmatic adjustments are needed.
Beyond collecting child and family data, Horizons integrates these two sets of information to ensure families are supported as a unit. This 2Gen approach ensures data are shared across teams, including educators, family coaches, and intervention specialists, and allows staff to bring a more complete understanding of a family’s entire context into their conversations, decision-making, and programmatic support. For example, if a family coach learns that a family has lost stable housing, that context can reach the child’s teacher, who might then watch for changes in behavior or sleep and adjust classroom supports accordingly.
Horizons also makes a deliberate effort to put data into the hands of frontline staff. Rather than being used only for reporting or leadership review, data is regularly shared with those delivering services so they can act on it. This is supported by broader investments in technical infrastructure, staff data fluency, and disciplined management practices.
Taken together, Horizons shows how strong internal data systems can serve as the backbone of integrated service delivery, enabling more informed decisions at every level, from the classroom to the boardroom, and letting the organization refine its model as families’ needs evolve.
![Two young children sit on a blue carpet and build a colorful structure with foam blocks in a classroom.](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Ellis-2-e1784737227692-500x342.jpg")
Ellis Early Learning: Integrated systems for quality improvement
Over the last several years, Ellis Early Learning (Ellis) has also invested in building integrated data systems designed to strengthen classroom quality, support educators, and improve outcomes for children and families. Like Horizons, Ellis is moving beyond fragmented and compliance-oriented data collection toward a model where data is actively used to guide practice, support continuous improvement, and strengthen organizational learning. Two initiatives anchor this work: the Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL), formerly known as the Center of Excellence, and the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning initiative.
The Center for Teaching & Learning is an in-house quality improvement initiative focused on best-in-class teaching practices, mental and behavioral health-informed approaches, and continuous learning through data, reflection, and coaching. Through its Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning initiative, Ellis has begun building centralized systems that connect classroom quality, child development, educator support, and family services. Rather than examining these areas in isolation, Ellis is working toward a unified view of how children, families, educators, and classrooms interact, allowing the organization to identify patterns and opportunities that would otherwise remain hidden within separate systems.
Within its classrooms, Ellis has focused on building systems that help leadership better understand educator experience, classroom quality, and child learning needs. According to Dr. Rosa Guzman Turco, Ellis’ first ever Director of Evaluation and Educational Excellence, data is “not a way to label children, but a way to see them more clearly.” She notes that no single data point tells the whole story, “But together, these pieces help us understand the child as a whole — their strengths, their needs, and the support that will help them thrive.” To achieve these goals, the organization has developed centralized databases that bring together information on teacher credentials, coaching supports, professional development participation, and classroom quality indicators. Ellis has also begun integrating child assessment tools to support earlier identification of developmental needs and strengthen coordination across classrooms and support teams.
Ellis has paired system-building with a focus on data quality and usability — helping teachers, coaches, directors, and social workers share an understanding of what data is collected and why, without adding reporting burden. Ellis is also expanding its systems for family support data, as a newly implemented case management system now tracks referrals, resource use, and follow-up across sites, giving greater visibility into families’ needs and supporting more coordinated service delivery. Early insights are already shaping priorities, from professional development topics to communication with families.
While many of these systems are still in early implementation, Ellis demonstrates how organizations can move from fragmented data collection toward integrated systems that support continuous improvement. By connecting information across classrooms, educators, children, and families, Ellis is building the conditions for more actionable data, stronger decision-making, and better outcomes for children and families across Greater Boston.
Data is already embedded across early childhood systems, but too often it is collected to meet requirements rather than to improve outcomes. When data is intentionally designed, integrated into day-to-day practice, and actively used by decision-makers, it can become a powerful tool for learning at the federal, state, and program levels. The opportunity going forward is not to collect more data, but to build the systems, capacity, and culture needed to translate information into better support for children, families, and the educators who serve them.
Learn more about how Social Finance helps governments use data to deliver better outcomes for children and families: Public Sector Solutions →
Footnotes
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