State chief state school officers renewed their commitment to the importance of early learning in Equity Starts Early. This policy statement outlines the actions states can take to increase access to high-quality early learning programs for all children.
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has been a CEELO partner since the Center began, helping to staff CEELO strategic projects and engaging with Center collaborators on the three Council projects highlighted below.
What Does It Take: A Convening of State Leaders to Identify Common Barriers and Craft Effective Solutions to Expanding Preschool
CEELO and CCSSO identified states that had the support of their governors or legislators to expand access to publicly funded preschool. We brought together state teams and national experts to identify barriers and craft effective solutions to scaling publicly funded preschool programs. This working meeting engaged national experts and early childhood administrators from states to learn about tools, resources, and strategize to build the capacities to get the task done!
Below are the materials from the September 2019 meeting:
- Meeting Agenda
- Participants List
- Panel Slides – How Far We’ve Come: Insights on PreK Expansion
- State-by-State – Information
- Meeting Tools
A growing body of research shows that high-quality care and education in the earliest years of life has a positive effect on children. In addition, there is growing understanding of the need for a knowledgeable and skilled workforce to provide quality early childhood education that makes a difference in children’s lives. State education chiefs and governors and are the key decision-makers in strengthening or transforming policies and practice to support the ECE workforce and can support necessary changes in states’ infrastructure to support these efforts. In partnership with the National Governors Association, CCSSO has launched a network of 10 states that will receive support to develop and carry out action plans focused on one or more specific state policy priorities related to improving their ECE workforce. CCSSO will provide technical assistance and grants to four states that have Birth-Grade-12 governance. These include: Arkansas, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The ECE SCASS is dedicated to supporting the work of state education agencies on issues of standards, instruction, assessment, data systems, and program design and accountability for children from birth to grade 3.
2018-19 ECE SCASS states – DODEA, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virgin Islands, Washington, Wyoming.