Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Grantees Announced

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vermont as new state grantees to receive $280 million in grant awards from the 2013 Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) fund. The award will help to improve access to high-quality early learning and development programs throughout their states. These six states join the 14 existing state grantees who secured funding in the first two rounds, which began in 2011.

RTT-ELC has awarded over $1 billion under this administration towards states to align, coordinate, and improve the quality of existing early learning and development programs through multiple funding streams that support children from birth to age five.

Funds are used to:

1. Establish cultural, linguistic, and developmentally appropriate early learning and development standards across all the essential domains of school readiness for children from birth to kindergarten entry;

2. Ensure that quality program standards are applied to all early learning programs in the state;

3. Build and improve on state Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement Systems designed to improve and inform parents about the quality of early learning programs;

4. Promote health and family engagement strategies.

For complete details of this announcement, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website here.