Policy Matters: ECE Planning In the Real World

Across the country, state policymakers are taking steps to increase the availability, affordability, quality, and coordination of services offered to young children and their families. Much of this policy planning is either limited to individual programs or consists of long-range visioning, often failing to produce short-term policy change. In contrast, Policy Matters takes states through a three-phase process that combines broad, long-range, systemic visions with the policy analysis needed to identify and produce short-term, politically feasible policy victories.

Aligned with the Policy Matters project of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the Teachers College project provides state-specific technical assistance to individual states on their school readiness policies. Using a semi-structured 14- to 18-month process adapted to each state's unique context, we engage a diverse set of state-based stakeholders in a series of analytic, synthetic, and catalytic activities related to a broad set of school readiness policy options. This process includes an audit of the current state policies across early care and education, health, mental health, family support, and K-3 education, as well as a comparison of the state's policies with national recommendations and state-developed policy goals. This information is combined with results from an analysis of the state's political context to identify a few politically feasible policy options.

In the final stage of the project, state policymakers work with Teachers College consultants to develop action tools (e.g., legislation) and a detailed policy plan for implementing the policy change. To date, this work has been completed with Ohio, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Colorado; work is underway in West Virginia and Florida. We welcome inquiries from other states.

Funding Sources: Carnegie Corporation of New York

Contact: Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D.

Other Current Systems/Governance Projects:

- Financing Universal Early Care and Education for America's Children
- Analysis of Early Childhood Governance Efforts
- Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Alignment of Standards, Curriculum, and Assessment: One State's Experience ("A Single Step")
- Early Care and Education Workforce Initiative

Completed Systems/Governance Projects