Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge Application Released

This week, the Departments of Education (DOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS) released the application for the Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC). A joint DOE/HHS initiative, RTT-ELC will provide $500 million in competitive grants to states demonstrating a commitment to improving early-childhood programs by addressing the health, social-emotional development and cognitive outcomes of children from birth to age five. Improving and providing access to high-quality learning programs, RTT-ELC ultimately aims to eliminate the school readiness gap that exists between children with high needs, such as those who are low-income or children with disabilities, and their peers.

RTT-ELC grants will be awarded to states that focus on coordinating systems, aligning resources and increasing access to high-quality early-learning programs. Specifically, the RTT-ELC grant award will be based on a state's ability to address 5 key areas of early childhood reform, including:

• Establishing Successful State Systems by building on the State's existing strengths, ambitiously moving forward the State's early learning and development agenda, and carefully coordinating programs across agencies to ensure consistency and sustainability beyond the grant
• Defining High-Quality, Accountable Programs by creating a common tiered quality rating and improvement system that is used across the State to evaluate and improve program performance and to inform families about program quality;
• Promoting Early Learning and Development Outcomes for Children to develop common standards within the State and assessments that measure child outcomes, address behavioral and health needs, as well as inform, engage and support families;
• Supporting A Great Early Childhood Education Workforce by providing professional development, career advancement opportunities, appropriate compensation, and a common set of standards for workforce knowledge and competencies; and
• Measuring Outcomes and Progress so that data can be used to inform early learning instruction and services and to assess whether children are entering kindergarten ready to succeed in elementary school.

Grant awards are expected to range from $50 million to $100 million. The application can be found here and is due on October 19th, 2011. Grant awards are expected to be announced in December.

Continue to check the RTT-ELC page, as well as our blog, for continued updates.