Promises Made to Advance Early Care and Education in CT

More than 300 parents, early care and education advocates and legislators converged on Thomas Edison Middle School in Meriden on Nov. 14 to learn about the Obama Administration's plans to invest in early education from Dr. Jacqueline Jones, Senior Advisor for Early Learning to U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. Parents, advocates and public officials made commitments to position Connecticut to be eligible for new federal programs such as Race to the Top and Early Learning Challenge Grants.

“Right now, the system is broken,” said Cyd Oppenheimer, a senior policy fellow at CT Voices for Children. “Parents don't know the quality of the programs to which they send their children because there is no standard way to compare city to city, street to street. Providers can't focus on quality and the needs of children because they are too concerned with cobbling together enough funds, from multiple programs within multiple agencies within both the state and federal government, to pay their rent and pay their teachers. We, the people, don't know whether the programs on which we're spending our money are working – or which ones aren't working – because the data doesn't exist to tell us about the long or even short-term impact of programs.”

“We are here today because we believe that Connecticut needs to work harder to ensure we get the most out of all of the federal dollars that should be coming to this state to support young children and public education,” said Merrill Gay, the executive director of New Britain's Discovery Collaborative and co-chair of the CT Early Childhood Alliance.

And CT advocates believe Nutmeg parents will play a central role in making sure this system works for children and their families.

“This system will ensure intervention at the earliest states in a child's life,” said Beverly Lawrence, a member of CT Parent Power.

By the year 2020, Dr. Jones said, the Obama Administration has set the goal for the United States to be the country with the most competitive workforce, with the most students obtaining two- and four-year college degrees.

“The president wants us to be first in the world to have children graduating from college. Achieving that result will require that children are equipped at their very earliest days,” said Jones.

To help accomplish this goal, it is also very important to have effective teachers in classrooms and data systems that can talk to one another to give real data on progress. The Obama Administration, Jones said, wishes to strengthen existing early care and education programs and initiate new ones in a “cradle to career agenda.”

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prepare children and we must seize it,” said Jones. “It's time we came together and recognized the precious asset of every one of America's children and [do what we can] to put them on the path to happy and successful lives.”

CT Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan, Governor Jodi Rell's representative at the Nov. 14 meeting, promised a highly-functioning State Advisory Council that has its efforts directly coordinated with the Office of Early Childhood Planning, Outreach and Coordination. He promised to make sure the following initiatives take place:

1) the appointment by Gov. Rell of a State Advisory Council chairperson;

2) the start of a longitudinal study of CT's early childhood system by the end 2010;

3) ensuring a transparent process for how the federal and state funds will be used in building this system;

4) working to ensure that the community capacity building and parent trust funds are supported; 

5) that CT's application to secure the federal funds for ECE includes a strong parent leadership training component.

“I think the message and vision is consistent with what we're doing in Connecticut,” said Dr. McQuillan. To Dr. Jones, he said, “What you outlined is a remarkable confluence of what we're doing in the state.”

Of state legislators in attendance, it was asked that they support and work with the ECE Legislative Work Group and offer on-going support of CT's core ECE programs, advancement of the ECE comprehensive system and continued support and commitment of the blueprint/capacity building work and the Parent Trust Fund.

“I've been at this for 15 years,” said Sen. Thomas Gaffey (D-Meriden) “and I finally feel my state has a partner in federal government. It's refreshing; it's totally new thinking in Washington. If I could, I'd put every cent into education, because that is how we will get out of the current economic [crisis].”

Federal-level legislators were asked to commit to strongly supporting and advocating for full funding of important programs, such as Care 4 Kids, Early Learning Challenge Grants, Early Literacy programs and the Promising Neighborhood Initiative, as well as provide strong leadership to ensure strong funding for ECE programs in the 2011 Appropriations budget.

All who were asked these important questions answered they would do whatever they could to achieve these goals.

The event was co-sponsored by the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance, CT Parent Power and Meriden Children First.