Introduction

The Head Start Bureau and the ACYF Commissioner's Office of Research and Evaluation awarded eight cooperative agreements under the Head Start Quality Research Center (QRC) Consortium to promote the school readiness of preschool children in Head Start. These five-year grants will fund partnerships between academic researchers and Head Start programs designed to improve child outcomes in the areas of literacy, social-emotional development, and other domains of school readiness, through enhancements to curriculum, teacher training and mentoring, parent involvement and assessment practices. Research teams will implement and evaluate their interventions with Head Start program partners in an initial site, then replicate the successful interventions to additional sites.