Educare of Lincoln opened in March 2013 and is currently a collaborative effort of the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, Lincoln Public Schools and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Educare of Lincoln is part of the larger, national network of 22 Educare Centers located throughout the United States, which build on Head Start and Early Head Start.

Data and evaluation play a special role in the Educare Learning Network. Each Educare has a Local Evaluation Partner (LEP) and common data are collected across all sites and aggregated by the National Evaluation Partner (NEP). LEPs collect some unique local data as well, to help the program understand matters of local interest. The College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is the LEP for Educare of Lincoln. The evaluation is coordinated by Departments of Child, Youth, and Family Studies and Speech and Language Pathology.

Under the supervision of faculty, graduate students are involved in data collection. After data are collected, teachers and parents are informed about children’s development, teachers and Master Teachers receive classroom observation scores, data dashboards are prepared and annual reports aggregate data for the year.