Communities working together

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, NY. Canada came to Minnesota to speak at the Minnesota Meeting, hosted by the Minneapolis Foundation. Over 1,000 people attended and gave Mr. Canada a standing ovation. The event was covered in numerous local media including MinnPost, HomeTown Source and Twin Cities Daily Planet.

Following the luncheon, Mr. Canada addressed a special hearing of the House Education Policy committee who were joined by other interested members of the House and Senate.

What I found most inspiring is how a community can come together to make a difference in closing the achievement gap.

The HCZ is a non-profit organizing located in a 100-block section of Harlem, NY that is committed to educating all children, providing social-service and community building programs and breaking the cycle of poverty for families. It has been heralded as a model for education and community building by President Obama and has appeared on numerous national news programs.

The principles Mr. Canada bases his program upon are:

• Begin Early
• Provide continuous, high quality programming throughout the child’s educational experience
• Engage and empower parents
• Redesign schools with the success of each child in mind
• Build communities that support children and their learning
• Use clear and timely evaluation methods

Of course, Ready 4 K knows that beginning early is one of the keys to educational success. The HCZ takes it further to provide high quality educational opportunities and a supportive community all the way until the child graduates from college.

What’s happening in Minnesota (Northside Achievement Zone)

Inspired by a visit to the Harlem Children’s Zone in 2007, leaders in Minneapolis are creating the Northside Achievement Zone. The mission of NAZ:

“Resources and opportunities will be aligned in The Zone to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of all children (birth to 18 years) to promote educational achievement and life success.”

Projects that NAZ is working on include creating a NAZ-tested Seal of Approval for organizations providing high quality programs and collaboration in the Zone, establishing From the Northside to the Campus to prepare kids for success in college and life, and On the Block where neighbors will work together to support youth achievement.

500 under 5, a project working to reach 500 children under aged 5 and their families on the Northside and engage them in early learning opportunities, is part of NAZ.

The Harlem Children’s Zone is an incredible project and Geoffrey Canada brought great enthusiasm to Minnesota. Building on the lessons learned by NAZ on the Northside, we can work together to create a state where all children succeed and supported by their communities.

What's in Store for QRS in Minnesota?

Following the allocation of new federal money this legislative session for Parent Aware, Minnesota’s Quality Rating System pilot, it’s important to have a sense of the issues that have risen as this new system is implemented and evaluated. Particularly useful will be lessons from other states that have launched statewide systems, as well as states that, like Minnesota, are piloting QRSs or are in the development stages of a QRS.

A recent Child Trends issue brief entitled “Issues for the Next Decade of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems” takes a look at what other states have learned, and identifies new research areas about QRS. In many ways, Minnesota is well-poised to benefit from past research, and in fact, the evaluation of our QRS already underway is taking these points into account. Child Trends is a non-profit, nonpartisan research center that studies children at all stages of development, and prepared the brief in conjunction with the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) at the Administration of Children and Families.

For example, the brief notes that new observation tools are needed to determine positive outcomes based on children’s experiences and environments, and to this end, Minnesota is an example of a state using multiple tools to address this. Also, some states have not included parents in the design and planning of their rating systems, and the brief highlights Minnesota as one state that has been intentional about gathering feedback from parents.

I’d encourage anyone interested in gaining a better grasp on the national scene related to QRS to take a few minutes to read the brief. Minnesota is mentioned throughout, and as we move forward with our QRS, its great to be able to learn from other states—and hopefully influence future work around the country.

In the news

It was a busy week for Parent Aware and the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation. Stories appeared in both the StarTribune and the Pioneer Press about the progress Parent Aware is making in helping to connect low income families to quality child care. A great editorial was also published in the StarTribune. The MELF was also highlighted in an article describing the economic investment needed for early care and education.

Expanding Parent Aware, a quality rating system for child care providers, to be state wide is a key piece of Ready 4 K's agenda of helping kids start kindergarten ready for learning success. Stay tuned as we head into the election season for questions to ask candidates on how they plan to get kids ready.

photo by pragmagraphr

Small Gains at the Minnesota Legislature

Legislative Session ends with a few small victories

After a weekend of tough negotiations between the Governor and legislative leaders, the 2008 Legislative Session wrapped up Sunday evening with the legislature passing a budget balancing bill, a bonding bill, and several other provisions. For early childhood, all the provisions that were in the bills going into the weekend stayed in the final bills. Most notably, the supplemental budget bill includes funding for early screening, the creation of a State Advisory Council on Early Education and Care, a cut to basic sliding fee child care, and cuts to child care quality improvements. Additionally, the Governor and key Republicans would not agree to include bonding for early childhood facilities in the final bonding bill.

Specifically, the supplemental budget bill includes the following provisions:

The State reimburses school districts for a portion of the actual cost of health and development screening for three to five year olds, as required by law. The law change increases these reimbursements from $30 to $40 for 5 year olds, from $40 to $50 for 4 year olds and recognizing the importance of screening earlier, $50 to $75 for 3 year olds. This is a marked improvement and will help identify children who need assistance in getting ready for school earlier.

The bill as passed by the legislature creates a State Advisory Council on Early Education and Care. Under the federal Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, state governors are required to create such a council. The adopted language recognizes this process, and adds to the council's duties and membership. In addition to representatives from state departments overseeing early childhood programs, and from Head Start, school districts and local ECE providers, the legislation adds four legislators and two parents with children under the age of six. Parental involvement in the Council is paid for by transferring $12,500 from the Pre-K Allowances and $12,500 from the administrative costs of the Child Care Development Fund, unless other funds become available.

Unfortunately, the bill also includes several cuts to early care and education.

• $9.227 million is cut from the Basic Sliding Fee child care appropriation. In a typical year, funds unspent by counties, due to projections with the current distribution formula, are redistributed to counties with families on child care waiting lists. This $9 million would have provided child care assistance to many of the approximately 3,700 families currently on the waiting list.
• $250,000 is cut from the Pre-K Allowances pilot project. Earlier in the session, one budget bill had proposed that Pre-K allowances be cut $2 million but advocacy efforts by a number of early childhood organizations and action by Senator Dick Cohen, chair of the Finance Committee, made the cut much smaller. Thank goodness for small victories.
• 1.8%, or $110,000, is cut from Child Care Development Grants, which affects a small amount of dollars for Pre-K Allowances, the FFN grants, quality improvements, and child care resource and referral services.

As mentioned previously, bonding for early childhood facilities was not included in the final bonding bill. The Early Childhood Learning and Child Protection Facilities grant program is for facility construction and rehabilitation, for use by Head Start, early childhood family education, early childhood intervention, and crisis nurseries programs. Funding for the program was line-item vetoed in the first bonding bill, and despite strong leadership from some legislators who fought for the inclusion of early childhood bonding until the end, we were unable to secure funding in the final negotiations. Even so, Ready 4 K was successful in making some changes to the statute to make the grant program clearer and easier to use. Legislative leaders encouraged Ready 4 K and our allies to come back next year with another proposal and to do more work to educate legislators about the effectiveness of this bonding program.

The second year of the biennium, in addition to bonding, is also typically used for promoting changes to state policy. Key changes were made to child care, including the creation of a statewide task force to make recommendations about barriers facing families applying for and receiving child care assistance. Additionally, some changes were made to the formula by which basic sliding fee funds are allocated to counties to more accurately reflect the actual need in counties. These changes will help prevent situations such as the state faced this year, with regard to unspent funds.

Ready 4 K knew going into the 2008 Legislative Session that with the state facing a massive budget deficit, the opportunity to infuse the necessary dollars for young children would be difficult to realize. Despite the setbacks we incurred, the changes and funding allocated this year are meaningful, and will continue to help improve school readiness. Please look for a more detailed 2008 Session Summary soon.

Thank you for all you have done this session, and we look forward to your input and involvement as we prepare for this fall's election (including all members of the Minnesota House) and the 2009 Legislative Session.

Show states the money

Looks like Minnesota isn’t alone in the struggle to put dollars behind statewide early childhood initiatives. According to the June 6 Education Week article, “States Press Ahead on Preschool Programs,” across the nation Governors and policymakers have good intentions, but when it comes down to deciding how much to spend, where the money will come from or how it will be distributed delays abound.