Race To The Top funds now available to early learning programs

Some $500 million are now up for grabs as the Obama administration releases the Race To the Top application for early learning programs.

“The Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge will reward States that are leading the way in improving quality and coordination among their early learning and development programs, and as a result, better serving children and families,” said  Arne Duncan, the nation’s schools chief. “This fund will leverage best practices and pave the way to reinventing early education in the United States.”

State programs with the greatest chance of winning a grant will be those of the highest quality that focus on boosting the cognitive ability, health and social development of preschoolers. The programs most likely to win grant funds, according to the Department of Education, will also include effective ways to address the school readiness gap and improve school success.

“Investing in the health and educational development of our youngest children is critical to ensuring America’s long-term strength and competitiveness,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “With this Early Learning Challenge, we are spurring innovation in the early education field and putting more children on a path to learning, opportunity and lifelong success.”

The early learning arm of the Race To The Top program will focus on improving education for preschoolers in five main ways, details the Department of Education:

• Establishing successful state-based programs by supplementing existing strengths, pressing forward on the state’s early learning and development agenda, and syncing programs across state agencies to ensure consistency and sustainability after the grant funds run out
• Defining high-quality, accountable programs by way of a common tiered quality rating and improvement system that would be used statewide to evaluate and boost program performance and keep families informed on the program’s progress
• Promoting early learning and development outcomes as a means to develop common standards and assessments that measure child outcomes, address behavioral and health needs, and support and engage families
• Supporting an early childhood education workforce by offering educators and associated parties “professional development, career advancement opportunities, appropriate compensation, and a common set of standards for workforce knowledge and competencies”
  
• Measuring outcomes and tracking program progress, then using the information to make decisions on best early learning instruction practices and offerings, and to determine whether the school readiness gap is being addressed

The grant awards will range from approximately $50 million to $100 million, with the amount received being dependent upon proposed plans and the population in the state gaining the funds.