Nickelodeon, through their kindergarten readiness initiative – Beyond the Backpack – will distribute 50,000 toolkits in English and Spanish and increase exposure to STEM concepts in underserved areas through the Beyond the Backpack On-the-Go SMS text program and Kindergarten Readiness Block Parties featuring Blaze and the Monster Machines.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) will provide at least five new pieces of free or low-cost STEM-related content to families and educators in order to foster equitable access to high-quality STEM learning in the homes, centers, schools and communities where young children birth through age 8 spend their time. The STEM content will provide educators and families with information and guidelines for how to offer children engaging learning opportunities.
A national leader in early childhood education, Wolf Trap’s acclaimed Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts was established in 1981 at the request of Head Start. Based on decades of research demonstrating that the application of high-quality arts education is a highly-effective instructional approach to students’ knowledge acquisition and skills learning, Wolf Trap Institute uses performing arts strategies to teach across subject areas through intensive professional development for teachers and direct arts-integrated instruction in early childhood classrooms. Wolf Trap reaches children in economically disadvantaged communities, so that they may have access to high-quality early childhood arts education programs. In the 2015-16 school year, Wolf Trap, through its affiliate network and partnerships in 30 states across the country—including Turnaround Arts, a signature program of the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities—expects to serve 60,000 children, teachers and parents. Wolf Trap Foundation is proud to partner with Invest in US and commits $1 million in 2016 to early childhood arts integration services. Together, they are working to accomplish the President’s mandate to invest in quality early childhood education.
While Northwest Arkansas continues to rank as a premier job growth region, our community has identified access to high quality early childhood programs as the top quality of life concern. The Early Childhood Initiatives Center (ECIC) supports the 494 early childhood programs that provide care and education to over 32,000 children in Northwest Arkansas. We employ a 7-prong approach of professional and program development, accountability, resource and financial support, awareness, and advocacy to create systemic change towards state quality accreditation. The goal of the Early Childhood Initiatives Center (ECIC) is to be an anchor of support so that 100% of early childhood education programs in Northwest Arkansas are quality accredited, ensuring that every young child has the opportunity to have a high quality education.
The ECIC has reached capacity in both space and resources by serving over 240 centers in our current facility, but we are still leaving 18,000 children in our region behind. It Takes a Village to Raise a Child Capital Campaign will expand the Early Childhood Initiatives Center to serve as a place where all early childhood professionals can share knowledge, resources, and best practices to benefit the growth and education of young children.
We will educate community leaders, city officials, foundations, and corporations about the difference between daycare and high quality early childhood education, and the economic impact it has to our region, workforce, and future talent pipeline. By banding Northwest Arkansas leaders together in support of early childhood, we will encourage community wide engagement through volunteering, advocating and giving opportunities.
The Child Care Center of Evanston (the Center) is a community-based organization whose mission is to strengthen families by providing high quality, affordable care and education for their children. Its highest priority is to help children from all socioeconomic backgrounds gain the skills they need to succeed in school while fostering the shared community values of cooperation and respect. The Center strongly supports Invest in US will promote Invest in US and the shared goal to generate new commitments for early learning, by promoting the national dialogue, and raising awareness.
Specifically, the Center will use its Face book page, website and twitter account to promote public awareness and support on behalf of early learning. The Center will support and raise awareness around the initiative’s days of action and encourage participation from parents and the Evanston early childhood community. We will continue our dialogue with our local and State officials and lawmakers to promote in importance of a high quality early learning experience for all children before entering Kindergarten.
The mission of the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation (NCECF) is to marshal North Carolina’s great people, ideas and achievements to build a foundation of opportunity and success for every child by the end of third grade. We work to build public will, accelerate what works and ignite action that closes the achievement gap and raises outcomes for all young children.
NCECF’s signature First 2000 public engagement initiative, www.first2000days.org, is building bipartisan support for investments in children’s early learning. More than 100 NC business, faith, law enforcement and community leaders are serving as champions across the state, giving presentations, signing op-eds and meeting with elected officials. And most significantly, a shift is beginning to take place – communities are moving from “Why early childhood?” to “What can I do?”
We are committed to advancing policies and programs that improve outcomes for young children.
The Santa Barbara Education Foundation is committed to supporting programs in our community that enhance early childhood education. Currently, we support two programs, HOME INSTRUCTION FOR PARENTS OF PRESCHOOL YOUNGSTERS (HIPPY) and MOBILE WATERFORD. HIPPY is a developmentally appropriate, substantive early intervention school readiness program that helps parents teach their 3 to 5-year-old children at home, creating experiences for their children that lay the foundation for success in school and later life. MOBILE WATERFORD is an interactive curriculum bringing English language and reading readiness training to the several hundred Latino four-year-olds who would otherwise enter the Santa Barbara elementary schools without adequate English capacity. A van that has been up fitted with 8 computer stations containing the Waterford program makes 8 to 10 stops in neighborhood locations and the Storyteller preschools, serving 64 to 80 children on a daily basis for the entire year prior to entry to kindergarten. MOBILE WATERFORD has reduced the amount of children who have entered kindergarten unprepared by 80%.
The McCormick Center is committed to empowering individuals to build the leadership and management skills they need to create and sustain exemplary programs for young children. Through professional development, evaluation, research, and public awareness, we promote best practice in program administration. By working with states, professional organizations, and directly with early childhood practitioners, we raise the bar on program quality. Because, when it comes to early childhood education, leadership really does matter.
We commit to launching a civic advocacy campaign in 2015 focusing on the importance of investment in early childhood leaders. Activities will include a series of blog posts, social media campaigns, videos, and e-blasts stressing the importance of investing in expanding the leadership capacity of the early childhood field.
The Reading Connection (TRC) is a 501(c)(3) organization that improves the lives of at-risk children and families in the Washington DC metro area by helping them create and sustain literacy-rich environments and motivation for reading. The organization grew out of the beliefs that
• Positive experiences with books can unlock a lifelong love of reading
• A passion for reading opens young minds up to learning
• Reading empowers at-risk kids to reach their full potential
• Adults can demonstrate the power and joy of reading by acting as reading role models
Years of literacy research has shown that hearing books read aloud and having books in the home are the two greatest multipliers of academic success for at-risk children. Thus TRC’s programming focuses on providing read-aloud experiences for kids living in shelters and transitional/affordable housing, on building their home libraries and on providing training to the significant adults in their lives.
Two of The Reading Connection’s programs, the Book Club and Reading Families Workshops, primarily serve children in the zero to five-age range. The Book Club sends new, high quality, age-appropriate books through the mail each month to at-risk families who are clients of partner social service agencies. Reading Families Workshops gathers at-risk clients of social service agencies for play groups and workshops, where agency staff, kids and parents experience books read aloud, songs, finger plays and play time. At the Workshops, each family receives a copy of the book read aloud and can choose two other books to take home.
In our commitment to serve more young children with these early literacy experiences, TRC will expand both the Book Club and the Workshops to two new partner agencies in 2015. Currently, the Book Club sent 4,105 books to 437 children enrolled through 5 partner agencies. In 2014, 57 Reading Families Workshops were held, reaching 511 kids and giving away 1,728 new books.
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In support of the Presidential initiative to improve early childhood education in the U.S., Parents as Teachers National Center is donating its highly acclaimed Supporting Care Providers through Personal Visits (SCPV) curriculum to 150 awardees of the Federal Early Head Start – Child Care Partnership grants. PAT’s commitment, valued at $45,000, includes both its Supporting Care Providers through Personal Visits curriculum and Supporting Infant/Toddler Care Providers supplement. The curriculum and supplement, which will be provided to the grantees upon request, blends PAT’s highly effective evidence-based home visiting strategies into an approach proven to enhance the quality of family and center-based child care. The curriculum has been evaluated for its effectiveness by Cornell University.
Commitment progress
Since announcing their commitment, Parents as Teachers has provided Supporting Care Providers Through Personal Visits curriculum to dozens of Early Head Start – Child Care Partnership grant recipients.
A new collaboration between Univision, America’s largest Spanish language media company, Too Small to Fail, a joint initiative of the Clinton Foundation and Next Generation, and Vroom, an initiative of the Bezos Family Foundation, is being developed to provide Hispanic parents and caregivers with positive messages focused on boosting early brain and vocabulary development among Hispanic children under age five. Messages will spark brain-building moments between parents and children, including interactions that improve early language, literacy, numeracy and social-emotional development. The partners will aim to reach Hispanic parents through more than 200 million media impressions that model and reinforce the importance of quality interactions, language-rich parenting and the benefits of bilingualism. At least 100,000 Hispanic families will be engaged directly online, through mobile apps, and at Univision-sponsored community events, with materials and innovative tools to motivate brain-building activities, including talking, singing and reading during everyday routines. By empowering families with actionable information about the science of early childhood, tools to better assess the quality of child care providers, and tips about how to integrate more talking, singing and reading to their children into their daily lives, parents will be better equipped to boost early brain and vocabulary development. This joint effort brings together and expands upon the partners’ existing work, including Pequeños y Valiosos (Young & Valuable), a joint campaign launched in 2014 by Too Small to Fail and Univision and supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Vroom, the Bezos Family Foundation’s science-based initiative.
By expanding educational opportunity for all children, Teach For America is helping our nation keep its promise of equality of opportunity. Because this challenge is both massive and complex, we unleash the leadership of remarkable people who will rise to that challenge in the classroom, as lifelong educators, and as advocates for change. We believe that high quality early childhood education is essential to getting kids in low-income communities off to a strong start. Given this, we aspire to be one of the largest providers of high quality early childhood education leaders to teach in low income classrooms across the United States. Today, more than 275 pre-K corps members lead pre-K classrooms in Head Start, district, and charter schools as well as child cares across the country.
Teach For America will work to insert birth-to-5 learning opportunities into the broader education dialogue and help expand perspectives on the importance of early learning. We seek to do so through sharing our unique view on the opportunity to teach young children in high-need communities and as a strong member of the Invest in Us coalition. Teach For America’s Early Childhood Education Initiative will launch a “Build Neurons” campaign to grow the visibility of the teaching talent in ECE and build momentum for attracting a new generation of engaged leaders in early childhood education. The goal of the campaign will align with Invest in Us through motivating potential teachers and their influencers to see early childhood education as an exciting way for talented individuals to help “build neurons” with young children and their families. Build Neurons will grow over the next three years to include a collaborative social media campaign with coalition partners who have a strong perspective on growing the field of teachers. Teach For America will also promote the Invest in Us messages to our community, especially sharing with K-12 audiences and our alumni ECE teachers across the country.
As an advocate of universal screening for more than twenty years, Brookes Publishing has committed to help strengthen screening in early education as part of the expanding federal initiatives. Brookes Publishing will support programs in beginning and/or extending developmental screening for all the children by developing an Ages and Stages (ASQ) Screening Resource Center that will include new educational tools designed to help early childhood programs prepare and organize, conduct, and follow through on developmental screening. This virtual toolkit will support screening success with new webinars, videos, downloadable tip sheets, FAQs, and practical implementation materials. Brookes Publishing commits to making The Resource Center freely available to promote truly universal screening. They will also offer 1,000 ASQ Screening Success kits which will bundle their best resources that support ASQ-3 use. Starting with a copy of the Developmental Screening in Your Community book, this booster package will also include Quick Start Guides, Learning Activities, a Scoring and Referral training DVD, and more. This donation represents $200,000 in product value. And finally in partnership with members of the federal inter-agency group supporting early education, they will design a Universal Screening Pilot Study to determine the use of ASQ-3 as a tool to collect population-wide data to evaluate community progress in supporting young children’s development, early learning, and readiness for school.
The Stranahan Foundation Board of Trustees have recently affirmed their commitment to continued investment in strategies to: (a) support and nurture effective teaching and high quality adult/child interactions in early childhood settings; (b) make rich, impactful early learning available to more disadvantaged children; and (c) advance quality in the early education sector. The specific amount of future investments will depend on the opportunities surfaced through our ongoing research. That said, the Foundation expects to invest $6 million or more in new grants over the next 3 to 4 years.
The Newark Early Learning Funders Group, an affinity group of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, plans new commitments of over $1.5 million in 2015 for high-quality early childhood education for the children of Newark and of the state of New Jersey. The group will advocate for, and support, children aged zero to three by: 1) Improving Parents’ Access to Information; 2) Providing Early Childhood Teachers with Opportunities for Professional Growth; and 3) Improving Early Learning Centers by Investing in Center Directors.
Child Care Aware of America will have virtual engagement in the White House Summit from the Child Care Resource & Referral Community. Child Care Aware of America is calling on members to participate in Invest in US by supporting their efforts with virtual “toolkit for success” and by sending alerts to prepare members to launch successful events in their local communities. Toolkit will include a social media component that will amplify the need for quality, affordable child care system as part of a solution for 21st century working families. Additionally, Child Care Aware® of America will highlight progress in states and communities. We work with state and local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies (CCR&Rs) and other community partners to ensure that all families have access to quality, affordable child care. To achieve our mission, we lead projects that increase the quality and availability of child care, offer comprehensive training to child care professionals, undertake research, and advocate for child care policies that improve the lives of children and families.
9to5 advocates for family-supporting jobs and safety nets that protect and support working families and their young children. Affordable, quality early childhood education for all communities, especially for low-income families, is essential to economic justice. It’s important for children to be able to reach their full potential while their parents are able to work and make ends meet for their families.
9to5 will support Invest in US by engaging our base in online activism, using our far-reaching network to share inspiring graphics. 9to5 will highlight policy victories and their success in elevating low-income families. We will continue our legislative and advocacy work to advance access and affordability of programs focused on early childhood education. 9to5 will use our robust national platform to elevate early childhood education and connect the Invest in US work to local campaigns whenever possible.
MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online multicultural grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase economic security for all moms, women, and families in the United States. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its volunteers are educating the nation, improving public policy, and working to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s women, families, and economy. In addition to being a grassroots force, MomsRising is also a media outlet with a strong readership reach to over 3 million readers, over 3,000 bloggers, and a radio program. Our Spanish language website and blog, Mamásconpoder.org is also a vibrant forum.
Since our inception in 2006, MomsRising has worked to increase access to affordable, high-quality early learning opportunities, including pre-k and childcare. MomsRising plans to play a major role in the Invest in Us campaign both online and on-the-ground across the nation. We will educate our readers, volunteers, public leaders, and the American public about the importance of early learning, as well as engage our members in advancing early learning to boost our families and economy alike. MomsRising will provide grassroots support for the Invest in Us campaign by providing opportunities for mothers on the ground and online to engage in activities to support early learning in their communities and by utilizing our blog, weekly radio program, and social media networks to inform mothers about opportunities to participate in Invest in Us activities and to share information about promising practices in early learning.
First Focus is a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children the priority in federal policy and budget decisions. Prioritizing our national commitment to children means investing in their earliest years and supporting cross-sector investments in effective interventions and policies that promote their health, development, school readiness, and economic stability, while strengthening the capacity of their families to support their development. That is why over the next six months First Focus will work across our organization to promote the Invest in US Campaign. Specifically, First Focus will promote early childhood investments in policy formations that cross health, education, economic stability, nutrition, homelessness, child and family-friendly tax policy, and child welfare to break down the silos that often prevent programs from promoting the comprehensive well-being of children.
First Focus is proud to join other partners and stakeholders to play a significant role in the Invest in US campaign by highlighting effective policy for children and helping to translate policy into legislative action and funding. We will use social media, our network of state partners and affiliates, and support events to move policymakers to make significant investments in the early lives of children and their families.
The Early Care and Education Consortium (ECEC) is a non-profit trade association of Multi-Site Providers, State Child Care Associations and Educational Services Providers representing 8,500+ programs serving children from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in all 50 states and the District of Columbia committed to:
As a concrete first step, ECEC commits to convening its members and additional Multi-site Private Community Providers in early 2015 to operationalize provider-specific investments/commitments that will increase the number of high-quality early learning opportunities for children in diverse socioeconomic settings nationwide.
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) seeks to reduce poverty and improve the lives of low-income people by advocating for policies that deliver results that matter. Our child care and early education work promotes policies that support both child development and the needs of low-income working parents. CLASP advocates for investments in programs to help children, youth, and families thrive, while also working to strengthen federal and state policies that will help low-wage parents and other workers get good jobs and move up the economic ladder. CLASP advocates for expanded resources for child care and early education initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, including home visiting, child care, Head Start, and pre-kindergarten. In the coming year, CLASP is committed to working for expanded federal and state investments in child care and early education and leveraging key opportunities to make progress on the critical long-term goal of increasing the number of low-income children with access to high-quality early education.
As a nonprofit partner of the Invest in US campaign, the American Federation of Teachers is hosting a series of events to pilot their program Transitioning to Kindergarten.
During New York City’s historic pre-k expansion, the American Federation of Teachers and its New York City affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers, are piloting a new edition of the Transitioning to Kindergarten (T2K) toolkit at three Brooklyn schools, PS 156, PS 158 and PS 184. T2K is a free, online resource created by the AFT and the National Center for Learning Disabilities, with tools designed to foster literacy and numeracy skills as well as socio-emotional development. Each school participating in the pilot is a community learning school, centered on the meaningful involvement of families and the community in the education of children.
To celebrate the pilot, AFT and UFT have joined forces with First Book, a non-profit committed to bringing books to children in need. The AFT T2K pilot celebration will give books to preschoolers and showcase the fun activities included in the Transitioning to Kindergarten toolkit. Preschoolers, families and educators at PS 184, will join Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers for this fun-filled event centered on kindergarten readiness.
At the Transitioning to Kindergarten pilot celebration, each preschooler will take home two books selected by their teachers. In addition, each of the schools will receive a collection of books. Books were selected from the T2K Booklist and the forthcoming T2K Multicultural Booklist. Each book was specifically chosen by early childhood educators and AFT members from across the country to align with the skills fostered in the Transitioning to Kindergarten toolkit.
Learn more about this exciting effort and check out Transitioning to Kindergarten.
Established to expand Save the Children’s capacity to transform young lives, Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) holds elected leaders accountable for investments in children from birth to age five. Save the Children Action Network’s Early Childhood Education campaign is focused on influencing public policy on both the federal and state level through advocacy, mobilization and political action to ensure we prioritize investments in our youngest, and too often forgotten, global citizens – our children. We are working with government leaders and partner organizations to advance comprehensive, national early childhood education legislation and elevate early childhood education as an issue that can influence the outcome of political campaigns nationwide.
By focusing on key target states and engaging a national advocacy network of activists, Save the Children Action Network is raising the visibility of early childhood education as a top priority at the local, state and federal level. Save the Children Action Network will participate in the Invest in Us campaign by engaging our national network through online and offline actions, social media posts and graphics designed to increase public awareness about the key tenets of the campaign and the bipartisan support for early education. We will also engage media around ways to implement creative funding mechanisms to support the campaign while also mobilizing supporters around the country to engage our nation’s governors to expand access to early education.
ZERO TO THREE is committed to rallying the infant-toddler field to advocate for investments that support early development right from the start, beginning with our second Rally4Babies on the day of the White House Summit on Early Education. We will continue our Rally throughout the year by celebrating the central role parents and other caregivers play in shaping their children’s development and highlighting the work of communities and states that are weaving together the broad strategies needed to give all babies a strong start in life. We are developing a website, Rally4Babies.org, to serve as a central point for infant-toddler advocacy activities. We will engage our extensive policy network of dedicated infant-toddler professionals to deliver the message that “learning happens from the start—and so should our investments” to private sector interests and policymakers at all levels. In addition to these activities, ZERO TO THREE will continue its core mission, including exciting new initiatives related to parenting, practice, and policy, to address the interrelated aspects of development and ensure that all babies have an opportunity to thrive. Learn more at www.zerotothree.org.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) unites 80,000 early educators—Head Start Teachers, family child care providers, child care center teachers, and public school staff—as well as 2 million other workers, many of them parents. Over 45% of SEIU parents report that finding and affording child care is a serious problem. Working together for ten years, SEIU members have won improvements to early childhood programs including: funding to eliminate child care assistance waitlists; increased state payments so early educators can raise their own families out of poverty; and access to health care for children, parents and educators. To push for new early childhood investments, SEIU early educators will mount a joint effort alongside SEIU parents, home-care workers, fast food workers and others who have captured public attention and changed the narrative about what it takes to raise a family with a bright future in the United States. Uniting with communities and families, our members will call for:
Upcoming events include:
SEIU Early Educators will join fast food workers, home care workers, and others to call for wages that lift workers out of poverty, a union, and affordable child care.
Show of Hands in Support of Working Moms: Attendees will participate in a “Show of Hands” art project, leaving a painted handprint on paper in support of early childhood.
The National Head Start Association (NHSA) will echo the message of the Invest in Us Summit by hosting a Summit watch party at their 31st Parent Conference and Family Engagement Institutes and sharing the link to the live stream with their entire early learning field. NHSA will show clips of the President’s remarks at the conclusion of their conference and promote the Summit on social media. NHSA, NHSA’s Board Chair Vanessa Rich, and Executive Director Yasmina Vinci, will contribute to the Twitter storm and encourage others to participate. NHSA will participate in the six events by developing state fact sheets, an infographic detailing the importance of Early Head Start, and hosting a conversation on Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting at their 2015 Winter Leadership Institute. NHSA will organize parent advocates and Head Start alumni to compose a series of Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor focused on how family and parent engagement will ensure the future success of children and families. NHSA will craft a template press release highlighting the winners of the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership grants, organize Head Start Alumni to testify to the effectiveness and power of early learning programs, and create fact sheets that include the number of eligible children not served by Head Start and Early Head Start.
As the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) celebrates our 45th anniversary in 2015, we and our engaged network of over 20 Affiliates in communities across the country are committed to being a partner in the Invest in US campaign through social media, events, and other activities. From the implementation of our Parent Empowerment Program, to events during May’s Black Child Development Week, to the release of new Being Black Is Not a Risk Factor reports and our exciting Annual Conference in October, NBCDI will be integrating Invest in US messages as we support high-quality, strengths-based, and culturally-relevant programs and policies that lift up our youngest children and their families. With our members, who are educators, social workers, parents, and other professionals, we look forward to working with our partners nationally and locally as we build a stronger, more diverse network of leaders who celebrate families, promote progress, highlight successes, and collectively advocate for sufficient, sustainable, and equitable funding that ensures each and every child is loved, valued, educated, and supported, right from the start.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is deeply committed to ensuring affordable, high-quality early childhood education for all children from birth to age 8 and advancing a dynamic and diverse early education profession by connecting practice, policy, and research. As a part of upholding these values, NAEYC strongly supports Invest in US. NAEYC will promote Invest in US and the shared goal to generate new commitments for early learning, by promoting national dialogue, raising awareness, and maintaining the unprecedented momentum. Specifically, NAEYC will coordinate and rally its 300+ affiliates, 6,500 NAEYC accredited child centers, 150+ NAEYC accredited higher education programs, and 70,000 members to move public awareness and support on behalf of early learning. NAEYC also has a robust social media following, including 35,000+ Twitter followers and 77,000+ Facebook likes.
NAEYC will leverage these forces to generate a powerful voice elevating the Invest in US goals. This will be done by raising awareness around the initiative’s days of action and encouraging participation in the months to follow. For example, NAEYC will keep its membership base engaged by informing them about legislation, providing tip sheets and toolkits for various activities (such as organizing program tours for elected officials), showcasing the value of the early childhood profession and requesting testimonials of families for whom high-quality early learning has made a difference for their children. We will also tie activities in with several major events NAEYC hosts.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, with 15 national Jewish organizations and 125 local Jewish organizations, is the national coordinating agency for Jewish organizations engaged in public policy and community relations. Through our major anti-poverty program, the Confronting Poverty Initiative (CPI), we will encourage our local community members to reach out to their coalitions — in particular, their already-existing interfaith coalitions — to partner in events to highlight the importance of early childhood programs, and focus on early childhood programs through our already-established, annual programs such as our Hunger Seder and our Fighting Poverty with Faith Mobilization.
Fair Share believes that everyone should get a fair shot at a good, productive life – and that starts with a quality education. Attending a high-quality preschool or childcare program is a crucial component of a well-rounded education, and it’s the best investment we can make in a stronger, more prosperous America. As a national partner organization, Fair Share is committed to working with Invest in US to elevate the importance of early learning in national, state, and local dialogues. Our work draws connections between access to high-quality early education, the building of a fair economy where people who are willing and able to work hard can find good jobs that allow them to build a decent life for their families, and the effectiveness of critical anti-hunger programs that keep our nation’s youngest children fed and ready to focus while in school. Fair Share’s national team is spreading the message about Invest in US through traditional and social media, engaging elected officials and community leaders, and supporting the work of our allies in this campaign. Fair Share’s field staff is working in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, and Virginia to build momentum and support for Invest in US campaign priorities, and building support for expanded access to early education at the state level.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids strongly supports an increase in the federal tobacco tax, which the Administration has identified as the funding source for its early learning initiative. Tobacco taxes are a proven way to reduce tobacco use, especially by young people. On the day of the Summit and during coming months, we will communicate how both tobacco taxes and early learning enhance the health and well-being of our children. Through social media and email lists, we will encourage public health advocates across the country to speak out about the benefits of increasing tobacco taxes to finance early learning. We will look for opportunities to promote Invest in US in press releases, statements, blogs, and social media activity.
The American Counseling Association (ACA) is uniquely positioned to contribute to the Invest in US campaign. We are the only national professional association that includes counselors from all specialty areas who address issues across the educational spectrum. Our members work in K-12 schools as well as higher education. Our membership also works with clients from childhood through adulthood; they touch all aspects of a child’s and family’s life. We have a media and public relations infrastructure currently in place which will allow us to reach over 55,000 members, as well as significant numbers of counselors, families, media outlets, and other stakeholders that will echo the Invest in US message. We will be able to share information about our professional offerings, research, and other efforts as well as support the efforts of Invest in US. ACA is very committed to the Invest in US campaign and looks forward to working together in the days and weeks to come.
On the day of the White House Summit on Early Education, NWLC, Zero to Three, and MomsRising will lead a twitter storm to highlight the importance of investing in high-quality early learning opportunities. The twitter storm will be publicized widely through the Strong Start for America’s Children Campaign, Child Care/Early Learning Coalition, and our extensive network of state early learning advocates. Following the Summit, NWLC will assist MomsRising in the delivery of stories and paper dolls to Congress. Given the importance of new funding for child care related to the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), the Center will lead a Valentine’s Day messaging activity around the need for increased child care investments.
We will also lead an event in collaboration with national and state advocates to highlight gaps at the federal, state, and local level. The Center is also committed to supporting other activities related to the Invest in US Campaign to highlight the importance of early learning. Finally, NWLC will produce a guidebook on the new CCDBG law this winter as well as a brief on state child care policies for mothers enrolled in school or training programs. We will release our annual child care assistance report in October, 2015. In addition, we will plan a policy briefing on the issues faced by women in low-wage jobs including child care. We will also help to lead offensive efforts to expand investments in early learning and defensive efforts against proposed cutbacks to early leaning and other supports for low-income women.
National PTA is proud to serve as a partner in the Invest in US campaign and to support efforts that increase access to high-quality learning opportunities for every child. As the oldest and largest volunteer child advocacy association in the country, National PTA will work with campaign partners to strengthen and advance programs that help our nation’s children reach their full potential. Our members are comprised of millions of families, students, teachers, administrators, and business and community leaders dedicated to ensuring the long-term achievement of children. National PTA knows that this goal cannot be realized without investment in high-quality early learning opportunities, which is why our members advocate for affordable and accessible childcare and preschool programs for all children from birth to age five that engage families and are affordable and accessible; developmentally appropriate; coordinated at all levels (federal, state and local); and characterized by high standards for teaching, training, health and safety. National PTA is committed to engaging our state and local members and spreading the message of the Invest in US campaign to promote its success.
Easter Seals has been a leader in inclusive early education for nearly a century. Through a nationwide network of 74 affiliates, Easter Seals is the largest provider of inclusive child care and early intervention services for infants and toddlers. Easter Seals also operates Head Start programs. In 2013, nearly 88,000 children with and without disabilities received family-centered early education services from Easter Seals. Easter Seals is finalizing a curriculum for early education teachers and program administrators. This Training Modules for Inclusive Early Education (TMIECE) is an online training curriculum that includes modules on inclusion and how to work with children with challenging behaviors. TMIECE will be available for the general public in 2015.
The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) will support the Invest in US campaign with a twitter storm and Facebook activity highlighting CDF initiatives that support services and programming along the early childhood continuum. Marian Wright Edelman’s weekly Child Watch column, also shared through Huffington Post and other networks, will serve as a way to highlight specific early childhood programming and its benefits to children in poverty. Some of the CDF state offices are actively engaged in promising projects that address these issues, including increasing access to early childhood services in rural poverty areas of Appalachia and supporting expansion of a nurse partnership campaign/home visiting in New York, home visiting and SPARK programming in Mississippi, and early childhood coalition building work for Native American children and other young children of color in Minnesota. We will highlight our family engagement work and prepare fact sheets and other materials that show the need of quality early childhood programming and support parents and new allies in promoting the importance of brain development during a child’s early years.
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (CGLR) commits to an active outreach and engagement effort to build a broad, deep and action-oriented consensus around the proposition that investing in children during the early years is essential to assuring their success in the early grades. The December 10th Summit and the planned “days of action” present important opportunities to encourage community engagement, civic action and policy advocacy around early learning by CGLR’s networks of communities, partners, and local funders. Moreover, CGLR commits to work with Invest in US partners to promote replication and scaling of innovative programs across the CGLR Communities Network. CGLR is a collaborative effort by funders, nonprofits, government agencies, business leaders, states, and communities across the nation to ensure that many more children from low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship. Focusing on reading proficiency by the end of third grade, local coalitions have initiated campaigns under the CGLR banner in 150-plus communities in 39 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. More than 50 sector-leading organizations have signed on as CGLR partners.
The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska has implemented an intensive, research-based Educare model early learning program to reduce early educational achievement disparities by integrating and enhancing their Head Start and other child care programs in a new $10 million, state-of-the art facility. This project is the first ever Educare project built and implemented in Indian country. The building opened its doors to children in March of 2014, and currently serves 191 children and their families with early childhood development and educational services. The Buffett Early Childhood Fund invested $5 million toward the design and construction of the new facility. The Winnebago Tribe has committed to match the Buffett Fund’s contribution from sources including New Market Tax Credits, philanthropic foundations, and private donors. The operating costs for the comprehensive early childhood programming will be covered by public and private funds, including federal Head Start grants and Winnebago Tribe direct investments.
West Virginia passed legislation in 2002 requiring expanded access to preschool education programs in order to make preschool available to all four-year-olds in the state by the 2012-2013 school year. West Virginia’s preschool program, West Virginia Universal Pre-K, is available in all 55 counties and reaches 73% percent of eligible children and collaborates with Head Start and Child Care in 74% of all Universal Pre-K classrooms. West Virginia requires that a minimum of half of the programs operate in collaborative settings with private preschool, child care centers, or Head Start programs in order to facilitate expansion of the initiative. The state is also implementing a child care Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) and has aligned its statewide early learning standards to the Head Start early learning framework and the Common Core State Standards. West Virginia also offers early childhood e-learning opportunities, at no cost, to Teachers and Assistant Teachers working within Universal Pre-K to make required professional development and credentials more accessible.
The UP for West Sacramento (UP4WS) initiative is a collaborative partnership between the City of West Sacramento, the local school districts, First 5 Yolo, First 5 California, and community-based organizations to provide high-quality preschool and child care for all children ages zero to five in the City of West Sacramento. Originally created by a universal preschool task force initiated in 2003, the UP4WS program now serves over 500 children annually in high-quality preschool. Children who attend UP4WS show consistent gains in all assessed domains, with impressive language and literacy growth among English language learners whose growth in these areas mirrors that of their native English-speaking peers. The program includes high-quality standards and elevated teacher pay to professional wage levels and low student-teacher ratios. A partnership with UC Davis School of Education has supported the provision of high-quality preschool based on the latest knowledge about learning and brain development.
Oklahoma is nationally recognized for its high-quality infant and toddler programs and longstanding statewide universal preschool program, which is available to all four-year-olds in the state on a voluntary basis. The program started in 1980 and served more than 40,000 children statewide in 2013. All preschool teachers have at least a bachelor’s degree, must be fully certified in early childhood education, and are compensated at the same level as public school teachers. Researchers have studied Tulsa’s preschool program and found that children who attend Tulsa preschool make important gains in early literacy and math skills. These benefits extend to third grade math outcomes, particularly for boys and low-income children. Researchers also found that there are significant cost savings for the program, with every dollar invested yielding three in return. In addition to the high-quality preschool program offered to four-year-olds, the Oklahoma Early Childhood Program, which was launched in 2006, now serves more than 2,000 infants and toddlers across the state. This program benefits from a unique public-partnership with the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) that matches state investments annually to serve additional children and families.
The GKFF also led the development of and continues to support Tulsa Educare, a public-private partnership that serves over 500 children under three-years-old in three high-quality early childhood program centers in at-risk communities. Tulsa recently partnered with the nonprofit Too Small To Fail to reach the broadest set of children and families through the “Talking is Teaching” campaign. The campaign employs a community-based approach to engage pediatricians, business owners, faith-based leaders, librarians and others to empower parents and caregivers to boost young children’s brain development and build their vocabularies by increasing the number of words they hear spoken to them every day.
Recognizing the importance of early childhood education, Seattle developed a plan to provide high quality, voluntary and affordable preschool for the city’s three and four year old children. A study mission to Boston, Jersey City and Washington, D. C. in the spring of 2014 with elected officials, preschool providers, education advocates, labor representatives and Seattle School District officials helped solidify a keen focus on quality and student outcomes. A ballot measure was then placed on the November 2014 ballot to increase property taxes to fund a 4-year phase-in of the Seattle Preschool Program. The preschool campaign raised $1.2 million funded primarily by the Seattle business community, including Microsoft, Amazon, Vulcan and other businesses. The measure passed with 69% voter approval.
The Seattle Preschool Program will serve 2,000 children in 100 classrooms by 2018. It will be free to families making up to 300% of the federal poverty level. Families making more will pay tuition on a sliding scale based on income. Preschool classrooms will be provided through a mixed delivery network of community-based and public school facilities. Seattle also fully funds the Nurse Family Partnership, an evidence-based home visitation program for low-income, first-time moms from pregnancy through the child’s second birthday. The city also partners with United Way of King County to provide the Parent Child Home Program, another evidence-based home visitation program focused on reading and parenting skills development. The city launched its Early Learning Academy two years ago, a program designed to increase professional development for child care workers and preschool teachers.
The development of a high-quality early learning system in San Francisco has been built through community collaboration over the past 20 years. In 1991, San Francisco was one of the first cities in the nation to pass a proposition—the Children’s Amendment—which set aside tax dollars for children’s services, to seed local investment in early learning. In 2004, San Francisco voters expanded their investment with the passage of the Public Education Enrichment Fund to enhance K-12 education with one-third of its funds aimed at providing every local four-year-old with high-quality preschool through the Preschool for All program. In November of 2014, voters approved the Children and Families First amendment, which establishes a policy council to formalize a cradle-to-college continuum of support, continuing funding for early learning for 26 years. San Francisco will invest an estimated $135 million in local funding, generated by the measure each year for quality early learning, education enrichment, and youth services.
An estimated one-third of this annual allocation will be invested in early learning. While consistently focused on creating opportunity for the lowest income children, San Francisco’s strategy evolved to ensure access and quality for all children through a universal approach. San Francisco champions both quality and choice through a mixed delivery system that offers community, school, and family child care options through nonprofit, for-profit, and public sector program partners. Early learning professionals are highly trained and supported—lead teachers must hold a B.A. degree and are offered on-site expert coaching to identify needs, develop long-term quality improvement plans and model best practices. The preschool program is made possible in part by support from the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund. The Haas Fund has contributed over $60 million since 1994 and will contribute an anticipated $5.6 million in early learning funding in 2015 to champion access, quality, and professionalizing the workforce.
San Antonio passed a ballot initiative in 2012 to provide preschool with a sales tax increase of one-eighth of a cent. The initiative will raise $31 million a year and scale up to serve an additional 3,700 four-year-olds each year in high-quality preschool in years 4 through 8. San Antonio partners with a number of public, private, and philanthropic organizations, including Alamo Public Telecommunications Inc. and non-profits like Avance, Boys Town Texas, Ella Austin, the YMCA, Family Service Association, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation, and public school districts such as Northside Independent School District. These partnerships provide the funding for exceptional programs that serve as great investments in early learning. Avance, a non-profit aimed to strengthen families in low-income communities, offers a program to assist parents in developing their child-rearing skills with the aim of healthy development and school readiness. This program uses monthly home visits in order to view the home environment and reinforce the lessons the parents previously learned.
Another program at the San Antonio Public Library, Little Read Wagon, is funded by the San Antonio Public Library Foundation and aims to foster an early love and excitement in children for reading and provide resources for parents. Several partners -Ella Austin, Family Services Association and St. Paul Lutheran Child Development- also invest in Early Childhood Professional Development to supply resources for early childhood professionals necessary for running a high-quality program. San Antonio also implements a Head Start program for children ages 3 and 4, and some 5 year olds who reside in the San Antonio and Edgewood Independent School Districts. This Head Start Program is funded to serve 3,020 children in both of the school districts combined. Five other community and educational agencies implement Head Start programs across San Antonio to serve an additional 3,769 children.
The Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning partners with parents, schools, child care providers, early-intervention programs, Head Start, libraries, community organizations, and other stakeholders in order to provide Pennsylvania’s youngest children with a high-quality early childhood education system. Private partners also play a key role in ensuring that children have access to the highest quality of care in the early years. Seven Pennsylvania foundations joined together to build a coalition and to fund the Pre-K for PA campaign to expand access to preschool for all three- and four-year-old children in the state under 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
The campaign achieved an interim victory in July of 2014 when the state increased preschool funding by $10 million (an 11.5 percent increase), which will result in 1,670 additional children served. The state partnered specifically with the American Academy of Pediatrics and United Way in drafting their 2014 Infant, Toddler, and Pre-kindergarten Standards. It sets high standards for programs and professionals, and then gives programs the support they need in order to meet those standards, in terms of accountability. Pennsylvania has also released detailed reports to gauge the level at which their early childhood centers are operating, detailing both the risk and reach of the Keystone Stars program, showing that more than one-third of the state’s children under age five participate in some sort of state or federally funded early education program.
The Children’s Service Council (CSC) of Palm Beach County, initially authorized by a 1986 ballot initiative and reauthorized by voters this year, is an independent special district that provides a continuum of services to young children and families. Services include maternal and child health, early identification and intervention, quality and affordable early learning and after school programs, parenting education and support, teen pregnancy prevention, and mentoring. In 2005, the Florida Legislature established a voluntary preschool program (VPK) for four-year-old children. VPK is implemented through a mixed-delivery model, operating in public schools, public and private child care centers, and other community-based organizations. CSC and VPK services are aligned through their use of the Quality Star Rating System and Florida’s Early Learning and Development Standards. The standards provide a clear and comprehensive framework on child development from birth to five years of age that parents and educators can use to track children’s development. Through collaboration between local and state officials and a combination of local, state and federal funding, Palm Beach County has developed a strong, high-quality continuum of early learning experiences from birth to school entry and equipping their youngest with the skills they need to be ready for and excel in school and beyond.
This year, New York City pioneered Pre-K for All, expanding early education from just over 20,000 students to more than 53,000 children in year 1 of implementing truly universal preschool. The City secured $300 million in state funding for the expanded pre-kindergarten program, which offers free, full-day, high-quality education for four-year-olds. These classes lay a solid foundation for future success by offering instruction advancing comprehensive State preschool Learning Standards, aligned to K-12 expectations. Children are exposed to a wide range of books, learn new vocabulary, develop early math skills, and grow socially through developmentally appropriate, hands on activities and positive interactions with other students and teachers. In the fall of 2014, over 53,000 preschoolers enrolled in 1,700 high-quality, full-day pre-kindergarten programs and the city is working to serve all eligible four-year-olds next school year.
Nebraska has expanded access to and improved the quality of early learning for infants and toddlers by carefully utilizing funding and optimizing public and private partnerships. Funded by earnings from $20 million in private contributions and $40 million in public investments to the Early Childhood Endowment, the Sixpence Early Learning Fund provides competitive awards to community partnerships led by local school districts as well as training, support and professional development opportunities for early learning providers, program assessment and evaluation.
Georgia currently has one of the longest-standing and most successful early education programs in the country. The 2012-2013 school year marked the 20th year of the state’s preschool service, which served 84,000 students that year. More than 1.3 million four-year-olds have attended the voluntary program. In 2013, the legislature approved a $13 million increase to add 10 days to the preschool year. Georgia’s program has the unique distinction of being largely funded by the state lottery, which has appropriated more than $5 billion since its creation to increase preschool access in the state. Residents of Georgia receive free access to preschool services. The agency, Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, has also implemented GELDS (Georgia Early Learning and Development Standards) in an effort to extend educational standards back all the way to birth and create continuity with the state’s K-12 standards.
With a strong statewide preschool program in effect, Georgia has recently turned to expanding access to high-quality early learning experiences for infants and toddlers through the Talk With Me Baby (TWMB) initiative, the product of a robust public-private partnership initially made possible by a United Way grant. Spearheaded by Georgia’s Departments of Health and Education, in partnership with Emory University’s School of Nursing and Department of Pediatrics, the Marcus Autism Center, the Atlanta Speech School, and Get Georgia Reading, TWMB has set an ambitious agenda to ensure that all babies born in Georgia are exposed to a rich language environment, which has lasting effects across learning and development later in life. Specifically, TWMB is training nurses, midwives, and WIC nutritionists on building parents’ capacity in enriching young children’s early language environment; providing training to preschool teachers on enhancing their language and vocabulary instruction in early learning settings; and using technologies to remind parents to use nutrition-related language with their babies. The dynamic program is also undergoing a careful evaluation to ensure continuous quality improvement. By 2017, TWMB projects that it will reach all newborns in the Atlanta metro region, where 61,000 births occur each year; by 2020, the initiative is expected to sweep across Georgia, reaching the 130,000 babies born each year.
In 2006, Denver voters approved a ballot initiative to set aside a percentage of city sales tax revenue to improve the availability of high-quality preschool for Denver families, creating the Denver Preschool Program (DPP). In November of 2014, this program was renewed and expanded to provide support for high-quality preschool through 2026. The program provides tuition credits to Denver residents for up to one year of education, based on family income and the quality of the preschool the child attends.