Supporting Gubernatorial Leadership for Building Early Childhood Systems

Overview

In June of 2006, the NGA Center for Best Practices invited governors' offices to apply for competitive grants to support state leaders in three states to build comprehensive, coordinated early childhood (birth to age five) systems. Three states Montana, New Jersey, and South Carolina were selected to receive intensive technical assistance from the NGA Center for Best Practices and up to $50,000 to support in-state meetings and consultants for the next two years. Each participating state is implementing an action agenda that is informed by a self-assessment of:

• the current context of investments, policy innovations, opportunities, and challenges to building an early childhood system; current systems-building efforts already underway;
• and progress toward the Ready State recommendations in Building the Foundation for Bright Futures: Final Report of the NGA Task Force on School Readiness

Project states have defined their goals, prioritized actions, and will measure progress toward self-identified outcomes for systems change. NGA Center staff will provide technical assistance and consultation to state teams throughout the grant period. This grant is funded by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start.

To learn more about the goals and objectives of each Systems state, please click on the following links:

• Montana
• New Jersey
• South Carolina

Montana

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer's leadership team has outlined three key goals for building a comprehensive and coordinated system of early childhood:

• Integrating statewide visions and systems into a comprehensive and sustainable early childhood care and education system;
• Generating, utilizing, and effectively communicating data, trends, and outcomes to support forward movement on statewide birth to five agenda; and
• Analyzing and addressing governance issues in early childhood systems of state government.

Actions related to these goals will focus on: state to community communications; early childhood systems governance; data collection, analysis and use; conducting and analyzing an economic impact of early childhood; tribal involvement; and full-time kindergarten. To assist the implementation of these actions, Montana has requested technical assistance and research analysis on:

• early childhood governance;
• creative financing strategies;
• tribal community capacity building; and
• data consistency and development.

The Montana leadership team includes the Economic Development Office and the Education Policy Advisor in the Governor's office, representation from the Office of Public Instruction, the Head Start State Collaboration Office, and various bureaus/divisions within the Department of Public Health and Human Services, including the Children's Mental Health Bureau, the Early Childhood Services Bureau, and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's leadership team will develop one overarching state plan to maximize collaboration for building an early childhood system. The comprehensive plan will be used to provide strategic guidance to the Administration on the organization of the new Department of Children and Families. The plan will also be used to identify opportunities to leverage funds for early care and education and improve data collection efforts. The interdisciplinary policy team will also develop a strategy for reaching out to a new set of diverse stakeholders.

Long term goals include:

• Creating one coordinated governance structure, and implementing the statewide strategic plan through that structure;
• Designing uniform data collection techniques across different departments;
• Creating an Early Learning Council; and
• Improving service delivery for parents and children through increased coordination at the state and local levels.

Technical assistance needs for this project include the use of consultants to further evaluate existing systems planning efforts and develop of a comprehensive state plan. As part of the planning effort, consultants will assist in conducting an alignment audit of programs, policies, and funding sources. Technical assistance will also be used to coordinate and streamline data collection efforts across different departments.

New Jersey's interagency team includes representatives from Governor Jon Corzine's office; the Commissioners of the Departments of Human Services, the Department of Health and Senior Services, the Department of Children and Families, and the Department of Education; state legislators; and representation from the child care community and the private sector.

It is Governor Mark Sanford's goal to establish South Carolina as a model "Ready State" through the deliberate coordination of school readiness resources and the outcome-based evaluation of programs and agencies. In 2005, a Readiness Assessment Team seated under the auspices of SC First Steps submitted a set of recommendations to develop an aggregate policy measure of school readiness. Drawing upon these efforts, key actions will include:

• Developing, piloting, and implementing a South Carolina School Readiness Index; and
• Establishing common measurements and consistent data reporting mechanism.

As a recipient of an NGA Governor's Early Childhood Summit Grant, the state also plans to capitalize upon the broad-based structure of the First Steps initiative to host county-level mini summits in early 2007.

South Carolina's technical assistance needs include:

• Messaging and communicating the goals of the project at the Governor's Summit and the mini-summits;
• Analyzing state models of school readiness measures and coordinated data collection systems;
• Designing, developing, and implementing, the School Readiness Index pilot study.

The South Carolina leadership team includes decision makers and stakeholders in K-12 education, services for children with special needs, public health, childcare services, and data collection/evaluation. The team also includes representatives of each of the state's early childhood planning efforts, the Governor's office, and both bodies of the state's General Assembly.

Back to top

• Building a Ready State: Self-Assessment
• Early Childhood Systems: A Conceptual Framework
• Components of an Early Childhood Development System
• Project Thrive
• Build Initiative
• Building an Early Learning System: The ABC's of Planning and Governance Structures
• Beyond Parallel Play: Emerging State and Community Planning Roles in Building Early Childhood Systems
• Governor's Education Policy Advisor Call on Early Childhood Systems