Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Applicants Announced

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the states that submitted applications for the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC). Sixteen states and the District of Columbia submitted applications in this second round of the RTT-ELC, which provides funding to states to support their efforts to improve the quality of early learning and development programs and ensure that all children enter school ready for success.

The RTT-ELC focuses on five "key areas of reform":

• Successful State Systems
• High Quality, Accountable Programs
• Promoting Early Learning and Development Outcomes for Children
• A Great Early Childhood Education Workforce
• Measuring Outcomes and Progress

The applicants for this round of RTT-ELC include the following: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Awards will range from $37.5 to $75 million over a period of four years.The winners of this latest round of RTT-ELC grants are expected to be announced in December 2013.

For complete details of this announcement, please visit the U.S. Department of Education's website here. If you would like to learn more about the various Race to the Top grant competitions and past awards, please view our past blog posts here.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation Announces New Family Engagement Initiative

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has announced a $5 million investment aimed at identifying and cultivating innovations in the growing field of family engagement that support children’s educational success from birth to 8 years old. Through the initiative, the foundation strives to support and expand on-the-ground family engagement efforts that include program design and implementation, service delivery, and/or policy development and implementation.

Applications are currently being accepted from public entities or nonprofit organizations that have developed effective family engagement models that address obstacles faced by low-income families. The foundation is particularly interested in proposals that outline effective teaching strategies, align early childhood systems in their communities, and focus on building family economic security and strong family engagement in education. 

Applications must be received no later than September 23, 2013. If selected, applicants will be invited to provide a full proposal in October 2013. Selected grantees will be notified of their awards in December 2013. Grant awards are expected to be up to $500,000 for one to three years.

Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Grants Announced

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced the 2013 Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems: Building Health Through Integration grant opportunity.

As outlined by HHS, the purpose of this grant program is to improve the healthy physical, social, and emotional development of children during infancy and early childhood by improving the quality and availability of services in communities throughout the nation. Specifically, this opportunity will fund strategies focused on creating a seamless system of early childhood services for children and their families by engaging in systems development and integration activities.

The Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems grant opportunity will allow grantees the option to plan, if necessary, and implement one of three strategies:

1. Mitigation of toxic stress and trauma in infancy and early childhood across two or more early childhood systems (e.g., health, child care, home visiting, parenting education, etc.); 
2. Coordination of the expansion of developmental screening activities in early care and education settings statewide;
3. Improvement of state infant/toddler child care quality initiatives (e.g., State licensing standards) by incorporating 10 or more Caring for Our Children 3rd edition standards focused specially on the infant/toddler age group. 

Typically, Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems grantees are active members, and in some cases hold a leadership role, in their early childhood multi-agency state teams. These teams have developed plans that guide the development, implementation, governance, and financing of their state early childhood service systems. Traditional recipients of these funds have been State Title V Departments and/or State Maternal and Child Health Agencies and/or departments, and/or their contractors.

Strengthening Families - a framework developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) - has partners at the federal, state and local levels working together to prevent child abuse and neglect.  The Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems grant notice highlights the importance of partnering with early childhood state teams, including Strengthening Families.  To learn more about how Strengthening Families and the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems grant priorities are aligned, check out a recent brief written by the Strengthening Families team.

Eligible applicants include state and/or local governments and nonprofit organizations. HHS anticipates making 57 awards of no more than $140,000 per year for three years. It should be noted that awards will be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.  Applications are due April 26, 2013.  To learn more about the application process, please click here.

Family Engagement in Early Childhood Resource Guide

The Harvard Family Research Project has released Family Engagement in Early Childhood: A Resource Guide for Early Learning Challenge Recipients. This resource guide is intended to provide the recently announced Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant recipients with a list of resources and tools that will support their efforts to design and implement a family engagement strategy.

As stipulated in the 2011 RTT-ELC competition, grantee states are responsible for increasing access to quality early-learning programs by creating quality standards, developing data and accountability systems, and informing, engaging and supporting families that are involved in early-learning programs. The resource guide includes information about various topics related to family engagement strategies, including:

• Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Standards for Family Engagement 
• Training Early Childhood Educators on Family Engagement 
• Promoting Family Support and Engagement Statewide 
• Sharing Data with Families 
• Creating Programs that Engage Families 

This focus on family support and engagement is aligned with CSSP’s Strengthening Families approach, which encourages early-learning professionals and policymakers alike to build strong relationships with parents. This collaboration and parental involvement can help to ensure that parents and early-learning professionals work together to make important decisions that will result in optimal outcomes for children.

To review the Family Engagement in Early Childhood Resource Guide, click here.

Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge Grants Awarded

The Department of Education has awarded Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) Grants to nine states. The awarded states include:  
 • California
 • Delaware
 • Maryland 
 • Massachusetts  
 • Minnesota  
 • North Carolina
 • Ohio
  • Rhode Island 
 • Washington 

A dual initiative between the Departments of Education (DOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS), the RTT-ELC program is intended to increase access to high-quality early education and close the school readiness gap by raising standards, improving training for early learning providers and building evaluation systems that promote effective practices. Programs like RTT-ELC are a critical first step in ensuring that children are on track to enter school with the skills necessary to succeed.  Each state will receive a grant award from the $500 million RTT-ELC fund, with awards expected to range from $50 million to $100 million. Final budgets will be created after the grantees, DOE and HHS have the opportunity to finalize RTT-ELC plans. For more information about the RTT-ELC grantees, please click here.

Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge Applications Submitted

In October, 35 states submitted applications to the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant competition. A joint initiative supported by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, RTT-ELC is a $500 million grant initiative that aims to eradicate the school readiness gap between low-income children and their peers by improving and providing access to high-quality early-childhood learning programs.

To learn more about the RTT-ELC, as well as the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s efforts to align their Strengthening Families framework with early-learning improvement initiatives, please click here.

Grants awards are expected to range from $50 million to $100 million and will be announced in mid-December. Stay tuned to our blog for future updates.

DOE Awards Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program Grants

This week, the Department of Education (DOE) awarded $180 million to six states for the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program. Aiming to improve literacy outcomes for children from birth through grade 12, the Striving Readers program is the first-ever DOE initiative to encompass such a broad age range. The winning states are:

• Georgia: $25,650,000
• Louisiana: $28,500,000
• Montana: $7,600,000
• Nevada: $14,250,000
• Pennsylvania: $38,000,000
• Texas: $66,500,000

The winning states will hold individual competitions to sub-grant the DOE award to local school districts and early education providers, including nonprofit organizations, that have demonstrated success in improving early literacy development. The sub-grantees will be responsible for implementing comprehensive literacy plans, which includes: developing clear standards and assessments, providing teacher preparation and professional development, targeting interventions for students reading below grade level and developing a system of data collection, evaluation and program accountability. Local districts and early education providers that serve disadvantaged children will receive priority in the sub-grantee competition.

The Striving Readers program is the second initiative in the DOE’s effort to improve student literacy nationwide. In 2010, 48 states received formula funding to develop their own comprehensive literacy plans. This fall, DOE intends to award technical assistance contracts to both the Striving Readers states, as well as the 48 formula grantee states, in effort to foster the growth of literacy programs and promote state collaboration and resource sharing. In addition, the Obama Administration’s 2012 budget supports the new “Effective Teaching and Learning: Literacy” program, an effort that promotes the implementation of comprehensive literacy standards within state education strategies.

Stay tuned for future updates about DOE’s literacy improvement efforts.

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.

CSSP Comments on Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Competition

The Department of Education has created a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Fund blog for interested individuals and organizations to submit comments in advance of the competition. The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) will submit comments calling for the RTT-ELC grant opportunity to reward and encourage states to incorporate the Strengthening Families approach into their vision and goals for a comprehensive early learning system. We offer two main arguments:

• As their children's first teachers, parents are critical to optimal child outcomes and must be recognized and supported as decision-makers and leaders. 
• The Strengthening Families Approach offers a framework and practical strategies for early childhood professionals and policymakers alike to build stronger relationships with parents and create a seamless early learning system.

For more on the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge fund check out our previous entries. 

Resources:   

Strengthening Families Guidance for State RTT-ELC Comments, CSSP

June 17 Webinar Presentation: Strengthening Families and RTT-ELC, CSSP

RTT-ELC Comment Blog,  DOE

RTT-ELC Grant Program Information, DOE 

Strengthening Families National Network, CSSP

Obama Administration Announces $500 Million for the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Fund

The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announced a new $500 million state-level grant competition, Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Fund. The unprecedented $500 million investment represents a significant portion of the $700 million in FY11’s Race to the Top budget allocation and will be administered jointly by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. States applying for challenge grants will be  encouraged to:  

• Increase the number and percentage of low-income and disadvantaged children in each age group of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who are enrolled in high-quality early learning programs;
• Design and implement an integrated system of high-quality early learning programs and services; and
• Ensure that any use of assessments conforms with the recommendations of the National Research Council’s reports on early childhood.

Although the grants will be awarded directly to states, communities that have experience designing early learning programs may have an opportunity to partner with the state.   This is an opportunity for communities to lift up data on what has been working on the ground and reach out to state partners to begin influencing potential proposals. The application will be released later this summer with grants awarded no later than December 31, 2011.   

Opportunity Spotlight: The Early Learning Challenge Fund

The primary thrust of the Early Learning Challenge Fund is to provide grants to states to help them build comprehensive, high quality early learning systems for children birth to age 5 across all early care and learning settings. Although originally included in the President’s budget proposal this year, the Early Learning Challenge Fund is now part of a stand-alone measure, H.R. 3221.The Early Learning Challenge Fund helps states to reform early learning standards, establish quality rating and improvement systems, develop systems for early screening, support parents, and build components of a quality early care and education system.
The Fund would establish two competitive grants:

• Quality Pathways Grants – five year, renewable grants for states that have made significant progress in establishing systems that improve the quality of early learning environments.
• Development Grants – three year, non-renewable planning grants for states that have demonstrated they have some of the elements of an early learning system. These states would be eligible to apply for the Quality Pathways Grants after demonstrating significant progress with the Development grants.