Massachusetts Wins U.S. Race to the Top
—Early Learning Challenge Grant

The Early Learning Challenge is a major federal grant program designed to close the achievement gap for high-need children and to ensure that all children enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Funded by the U.S. Congress in the fiscal year 2011 budget, the $500 million competition rewards states that create comprehensive plans to transform early learning systems with better coordination, clearer learning standards and meaningful workforce development. The program is jointly administered by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In December 2011, the Obama administration announced that nine states, including Massachusetts, were awarded Early Learning Challenge (ELC) grants. Winning states “are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling and comprehensive early learning education reform,” according to the U.S. Department of Education. The award is an exciting validation of the progress Massachusetts has made toward building a statewide system of high-quality early education, as well as of the policy vision and ongoing advocacy Early Education for All.

The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) will administer the grant, a strength in governance that contributed to the state’s successful application. Created in 2005, it is the first in the nation to consolidate early education and child care agencies into a single state department. EEC is one of three education departments (along with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education) under the Executive Office of Education established in 2008.

The grant recognizes the foundation that Massachusetts has already laid to create a statewide system of high-quality early education and care, delivered through a mix of public and private providers. In addition to EEC, this foundation includes a research-based Quality Rating and Improvement System, the Universal Pre-Kindergarten grant program and statute, and the Early Childhood Educators Scholarship.

MA application  |  Score sheet  |  Reviewers’ comments and scores  |  Reviewers' bios

The Early Learning Challenge grant complements the $250 million Race to the Top grant for K-12 education that Massachusetts won in 2010.

Also winning ELC grants are California ($52,572,935), Delaware ($49,878,774), Maryland ($49,999,143), Minnesota ($44,858,313), North Carolina ($69,991,121), Ohio ($69,993,362), Rhode Island ($50,000,000) and Washington ($60,000,000).

For more information: EEA Summary of the Early Learning Challenge

Broad Support
A dozen Massachusetts departments and agencies—including the Executive Office of Education, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Department of Higher Education—signed memoranda of understanding committing them to help implement the Early Learning Challenge (ELC) grant. The Department of Public Health, Department of Mental Health, Department of Housing and Community Development, Office for Refugees and Immigrants, Department of Children and Families, Department of Transitional Assistance, State Advisory Council, Head Start State Collaborative Office, and Children’s Trust Fund also signed MOUs.

In addition, the Massachusetts application included 62 letters of support from, among others, Senate President Therese Murray, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Catholic Charities, the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Community Colleges, the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership, individual school districts, advocates (including Strategies for Children/Early Education for All), early education and care providers, and funders.

The Massachusetts Early Learning Plan
The Massachusetts Early Learning Plan consists of 20 projects that build on the current system. Below are some highlights of the plan. For more information, see the full Massachusetts ELC budget.

	Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). Expand participation in QRIS with the goal of universal participation. Increase program supports, online training and technical assistance. Provide funds to help programs advance. Validate QRIS to ensure that “program quality matches assigned tiers and leads to improved child outcomes.”
	Early learning standards. Analyze the alignment of the state’s early learning standards with school readiness and assessment, including a kindergarten entry assessment. “Augment the standards to better accommodate high needs populations, beginning with English language learners.”
	Assessment, birth to third grade. Create and implement the Massachusetts Early Learning and Development Assessment System (MELD). Purchase screening toolkits and assessment tools to implement MELD and a kindergarten entry assessment. Provide resources to Family and Community Engagement grantees, licensed and license-exempt early education and care programs and public schools. Conduct trainings.
	Family and community engagement. Here the major effort involves building a “state infrastructure to support interagency collaboration on programs and services for high needs children from birth to age 5.” Also, support early literacy, family literacy and financial literacy and other programs that “promote healthy living and child development.” Increase the accessibility of materials that convey early learning and developmental standards to diverse families through multilingual brochures and translation services. Establish partnerships with libraries and children’s museums “to align informal opportunities with state standards.”
	Workforce training and development. Invest in the state’s six regional Readiness Centers, charged with increasing the effectiveness of educators, from early childhood to higher education. Create and implement an evidence-based mentoring and coaching program. Validate workforce core competencies in social and emotional development, literacy and numeracy. Study best practices that support young children’s social and emotional development. Support an institution of higher education to train early educators in an innovative program for early educators who are English language learners. Develop a post-master’s degree certificate in early education and policy leadership. Create an Early Educators Fellowship, “a leadership institute for public elementary school principals and community-based providers that supports the alignment of early childhood education with K-3 education.”
	Kindergarten entry assessment. Develop a common metric for the assessment tools that will serve as the basis of a kindergarten entry assessment.
	Early Childhood Information System. Create the next phase of ECIS. Enhance connections and the exchange of information with the Statewide Longitudinal Data System.
	Sustaining program effects in early elementary grades. Support communities and public schools with early education and out-of-school-time partnerships and a birth to age 5 strategy.
	Alignment, pre-kindergarten to third grade. In partnership with WGBH, create an “online curriculum hub for early educators and a ‘School Readiness’ website for parents. Expand EEC’s Brain Building in Progress public awareness campaign.

Massachusetts Early Learning Plan  |  Early Learning Plan budget

 

Early Learning Challenge in the News
Nine States Awarded Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge Grants,  White House news release, December 16, 2011

Archive of Eye on Early Education blog posts on the Early Learning Challenge

Patrick-Murray Administration Announces Massachusetts Awarded Federal Grant in Early Learning Challenge Competition, Executive Office of Education news release, December 16, 2011

Early Education for All Campaign Welcomes $50 Million Federal Early Learning Challenge Grant to Massachusetts, Statement of EEA Campaign Director Amy O’Leary, December 16, 2011

Mass. Awarded about $50 Million Race to Top Grant for Early Education, Boston Globe, December 17, 2011

Massachusetts Could See Up to $50 Million Boost in Early Childhood Education Funding Through Federal ‘Race to the Top’ Program, The Republican, December 16, 2011

Massachusetts Submits Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge Proposal, Executive Office of Education news release, October 19, 2011

State Aims to Test its Youngest Students, Boston Sunday Globe, October 2, 2011

Early Education for All Welcomes $500 Million Early Learning Challenge in Federal Race to the Top, Statement of EEA Campaign Director Amy O’Leary, May 25, 2011

Other States
Thirty-five states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, applied for the Early Learning Challenge.

Other states’ applications, scores and comments  |  ELC in the news around the U.S.