Latest Reports

The 205-page application for Race to the Top Funds. It does not include an early care and education component, but does include a parent engagement component. First round winners will be announced in the spring. Second round applications are due June 1, with second round winners announced by September 30, 2010.

This report by Sara Mead for New America Foundation studies New Jersey's groundbreaking approach to early care and education in Abbott school districts. Dramatic improvements have been made over the past decade and the next several years will be critical when it comes to education in New Jersey. The next few years will prove if the state can expand access or struggle to meet status quo.

Invest in early education now, save on prison costs later. Did you know that Connecticut spends $696 million a year on prison costs? Investing in quality early care and education could save one-quarter of that cost, about $175 million. In the Nutmeg State, over 22,000 adults are behind bars, or one in every 121 Connecticut adults are in prison. Incarcerating one of these prisoners costs $90 per day or over $32,000 a year. Quality early education programs help children learn to get along with others and begin school ready to succeed.

This report from the National Association for the Education of Young Children looks at public policy developments in the states with regard to FY 2010 budgets in the areas including child care subsidies and regulations, quality rating and improvement systems, professional development, pre-K, infant/toddler programs, child assessment, and quality enhancements.

States like Alabama and New Jersey realize that even in times of economic crisis, investing in high-quality early care and education is important. Alaska and Rhode Island made first-time investments in state pre-k programs and still other states, like Louisiana, Florida and New York have been side-tracked in terms of funding in the 2010 budget. Ohio decimated its two-program pre-k system derailing a turnaround that had barely begun and setting themselves and their state’s young children even further behind their peers across the country.

 A study released in September by the National Women’s Law Center of child care policies in 50 states and the District of Columbia reveals that between February of 2008 and February of 2009 more states made cuts than made improvements in desperately needed child care assistance, worsening an already bleak landscape for parents trying to afford reliable child care.

This report updates policy developments made in different states when it comes to professional development, child care subsidies, child care regulations, quality rating and improvement systems, infant/toddler, pre-K, Kindergarten, Birth to Five, child assessment, quality enhancements, governance, public/private partnerships, statewide councils, health care, early intervention, mental health, collective bargaining, charter schools, public schools and tax credits. Connecticut is not one of the states featured in this report, but Massachusetts and Rhode Island are.

2009 Connecticut AEYC Awards