ECERS-3 Is Now Available in GoEngage

Bringing classroom quality assessment and continuous improvement closer to the rest of your program data

Understanding what is happening inside the classroom takes more than collecting data.

It requires looking at the experiences children have each day—from their interactions with teachers and peers to the learning environment, activities, health and safety practices, and opportunities that support their development.

That's why we're excited to share that the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, Third Edition (ECERS-3®), is now available in GoEngage.

For programs that use ECERS-3 to assess classroom quality and support continuous improvement, this means another important piece of program information can now live alongside the data your team is already using to understand children, families, classrooms, and services.

That's why we're excited to share that the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, Third Edition (ECERS-3®), is now available in GoEngage.

For programs that use ECERS-3 to assess classroom quality and support continuous improvement, this means another important piece of program information can now live alongside the data your team is already using to understand children, families, classrooms, and services.

That's why we're excited to share that the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, Third Edition (ECERS-3®), is now available in GoEngage.

For programs that use ECERS-3 to assess classroom quality and support continuous improvement, this means another important piece of program information can now live alongside the data your team is already using to understand children, families, classrooms, and services.

That's why we're excited to share that the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, Third Edition (ECERS-3®), is now available in GoEngage.

For programs that use ECERS-3 to assess classroom quality and support continuous improvement, this means another important piece of program information can now live alongside the data your team is already using to understand children, families, classrooms, and services.

What Is ECERS-3?

The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, Third Edition (ECERS-3®) is a research-based assessment designed for preschool and kindergarten classrooms serving children ages 3–5.

Rather than focusing on a single area of classroom quality, ECERS-3 examines both environmental provisions and teacher-child interactions that influence children's development, including cognitive, social-emotional, physical, and health and safety needs. It also includes items addressing developmentally appropriate literacy and math activities.

ECERS-3 is part of the broader Environment Rating Scale® (ERS®) family of assessment tools, which have been used for more than 40 years to evaluate and improve the quality of early childhood programs. ERS tools are used for continuous quality improvement, Head Start programs, QRIS initiatives, professional development and coaching, teacher self-evaluation, research, and other early childhood quality initiatives.

Learn more about ECERS-3 from Teachers College Press

What Does ECERS-3 Help Programs Understand?

One of the strengths of ECERS-3 is that it looks broadly at children's experiences within the classroom.

The Environment Rating Scales are designed to assess process quality—what children actually experience within an early learning program. Teachers College Press describes the scales as examining areas including teacher-child interaction, health and safety, the physical environment, curriculum, and program structure.

That can give programs valuable information for answering questions such as:

• What are we doing well across our classrooms?

• Where are there opportunities to strengthen classroom practices?

• Are there patterns across classrooms, centers, or program areas?

• Where might teachers benefit from additional coaching or professional development?

• Are improvement efforts producing meaningful changes over time?

That can give programs valuable information for answering questions such as:

• What are we doing well across our classrooms?

• Where are there opportunities to strengthen classroom practices?

• Are there patterns across classrooms, centers, or program areas?

• Where might teachers benefit from additional coaching or professional development?

• Are improvement efforts producing meaningful changes over time?

That can give programs valuable information for answering questions such as:

• What are we doing well across our classrooms?

• Where are there opportunities to strengthen classroom practices?

• Are there patterns across classrooms, centers, or program areas?

• Where might teachers benefit from additional coaching or professional development?

• Are improvement efforts producing meaningful changes over time?

That can give programs valuable information for answering questions such as:

• What are we doing well across our classrooms?

• Where are there opportunities to strengthen classroom practices?

• Are there patterns across classrooms, centers, or program areas?

• Where might teachers benefit from additional coaching or professional development?

• Are improvement efforts producing meaningful changes over time?

The goal isn't simply to produce a score.

The greater opportunity is to use assessment results to understand what's happening, identify priorities, and make informed decisions about where to focus improvement efforts.

From Assessment to Continuous Quality Improvement

An ECERS-3 assessment represents a point-in-time look at classroom quality.

Its value grows when programs use those findings as part of an ongoing cycle:

Assess → Understand → Plan → Improve → Reassess

For example, assessment results may help program leaders identify an area where several classrooms could benefit from additional support. That finding could inform coaching, professional development, resource allocation, classroom practices, or other improvement efforts. Later assessments can then help the program understand whether those efforts are making a difference.

This is one reason ECERS-3 data can be valuable not only to the person conducting an observation, but also to directors, education managers, coaches, teachers, and other staff involved in continuous quality improvement.

For example, assessment results may help program leaders identify an area where several classrooms could benefit from additional support. That finding could inform coaching, professional development, resource allocation, classroom practices, or other improvement efforts. Later assessments can then help the program understand whether those efforts are making a difference.

This is one reason ECERS-3 data can be valuable not only to the person conducting an observation, but also to directors, education managers, coaches, teachers, and other staff involved in continuous quality improvement.

For example, assessment results may help program leaders identify an area where several classrooms could benefit from additional support. That finding could inform coaching, professional development, resource allocation, classroom practices, or other improvement efforts. Later assessments can then help the program understand whether those efforts are making a difference.

This is one reason ECERS-3 data can be valuable not only to the person conducting an observation, but also to directors, education managers, coaches, teachers, and other staff involved in continuous quality improvement.

For example, assessment results may help program leaders identify an area where several classrooms could benefit from additional support. That finding could inform coaching, professional development, resource allocation, classroom practices, or other improvement efforts. Later assessments can then help the program understand whether those efforts are making a difference.

This is one reason ECERS-3 data can be valuable not only to the person conducting an observation, but also to directors, education managers, coaches, teachers, and other staff involved in continuous quality improvement.

Teachers College Press also provides resources specifically focused on analyzing and interpreting ECERS-3 findings and using the information to better understand early childhood program quality.

Explore ECERS resources and learning materials

Why Bring ECERS-3 into GoEngage?

Assessment data becomes more useful when it isn't isolated from the rest of your program information. When an important quality assessment lives in a separate spreadsheet, document, or system, programs can end up with another piece of information that has to be tracked and managed separately.

Bringing ECERS-3 into GoEngage helps agencies keep more of their program information together. Instead of thinking about ECERS-3 as a standalone assessment, agencies can incorporate it into the broader way they use GoEngage to manage their programs and support continuous improvement.

One System. More Context.

Program quality doesn't exist in isolation. Neither should the data you use to understand it.

Having ECERS-3 available in GoEngage gives programs another opportunity to reduce fragmented information and keep important program data closer together.

That can make it easier for leadership and program staff to incorporate classroom-quality information into broader conversations about program performance and improvement.

Make Results Easier to Find

Data can't support improvement if the people who need it can't easily find it.

Keeping ECERS-3 information in GoEngage provides a centralized place for authorized staff to access and review assessment information instead of relying on separate files or tracking methods.

Look Beyond a Single Assessment

A single ECERS-3 observation provides useful information. Over time, the bigger question becomes: What is changing?

Consistently capturing assessment information can help programs look beyond an individual observation and consider patterns, progress, and opportunities for improvement.

Connect Data to Action

Perhaps most importantly, bringing assessment information into the system your agency uses to manage its work can help close the gap between collecting information and doing something with it.

The purpose of quality assessment isn't simply documentation. It's improvement.

When program leaders can more easily access quality information, discuss findings, identify priorities, and monitor progress, assessment becomes part of an ongoing management process rather than a one-time activity.

ECERS-3 and Head Start

For Head Start programs, continuous improvement is already part of everyday program management.

Programs regularly examine information across education, health, family services, ERSEA, attendance, workforce, and other areas to understand performance and determine where additional attention may be needed.

Classroom-quality information can add another important perspective to those conversations.

ECERS-3 is widely used in Head Start and other early childhood settings as a tool for program evaluation and continuous quality improvement.

Having ECERS-3 available in GoEngage can help programs bring classroom-quality information into the same broader data-informed culture they are building across other service areas.

Learn More About ECERS-3

If your team is new to ECERS-3—or wants to deepen its understanding of how to administer, interpret, or use the assessment—there are several resources available directly from the organizations responsible for the Environment Rating Scales.

Learn about ECERS-3

Explore Environment Rating Scale resources

Explore ERS training opportunities

These resources provide additional information about the assessment, training, scoring, interpretation, and use of the Environment Rating Scales.

Ready to Use ECERS-3 in GoEngage?

ECERS-3 is now available in GoEngage, giving agencies another way to bring important program-quality information into the system they already use to manage their work.

See how GoEngage can help your agency bring more of its data, workflows, monitoring, and continuous improvement efforts together in one system.