Return to the Newsletter Archive   | September 2005
Sponsored by IBM and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
Brought to you by the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit (www.reinventingeducation.org) project.

Promising Approaches: Partnering to Promote Pre-K
By Sara Watson, Program Officer, State Policy and Education, The Pew Charitable Trusts

Pre K "Leadership involves planting trees under which you may never sit..." -- so began Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a panelist at the Governors' Forum on Quality Preschool in December 2004, sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts and other key funders. The Governors' Forum, as well as upcoming national conferences bringing together state legislators, business leaders, advocates, economists, and education experts, are examples of the many activities conducted under the Trusts' initiative to advance the quality of and access to voluntary pre-kindergarten for all of America's three- and four-year-olds.

Governor Granholm's words resonated loudly here at the Trusts. In our efforts to raise the quality of Pre-K for all children, the Trusts has worked to seed leadership, by involving a diverse range of stakeholders and making their voices heard in the debate. To be a force for change in Pre-K, the Trusts works to encourage the active engagement of - and importantly, build leadership among - policy makers and leaders at every level of government and from a variety of sectors including governors, chief state school officers, state legislators, business, municipal leaders, educators, parents, legal experts and advocates.

The Trusts' initiative emphasizes high quality preschool that improves child outcomes, is delivered in a variety of settings (schools, child care centers, faith-based institutions, etc.) and is voluntarily available to all children whose parents want it for them. Research clearly shows the effects of preschool for disadvantaged children, but emerging findings also illustrate benefits for a broader group of youngsters. In addition, the Trusts' initiative calls for an ultimate goal of preschool for all, because all children can benefit from high quality preschool, and because broad participation will ultimately translate to a broad base of support for the program. "Universal" does not necessarily mean "uniform;" however, a state's pre-K program can, and probably should, vary based on children's needs. Initial rollout can also start with the most disadvantaged. The strategy also focuses on advancing pre-K state-by-state, with our grantees providing a variety of supports to state leaders who have decided this is the time to advance pre-K and want help from the Trusts' grantees.

Because change leadership requires strong alliances, the Trusts relies on two primary partners in raising awareness of the importance of quality early education and in advancing policy solutions around pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds. The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University (NIEER) (www.nieer.org) provides timely, objective, research-based information that answers the practical questions about the benefits of pre-K and the characteristics of a quality program; the solid evidence they provide is critical to spurring leaders to action. Pre-K Now (www.preknow.org) provides direct financial and technical assistance to groups and leaders in targeted states that help inform the public debate on the benefits of quality preschool; their work helps support leaders as they take action. These partners have been active throughout the country and are currently involved in significant efforts in at least a dozen states. Both groups seek to strengthen the capacity and skills of early childhood advocates and state leaders-including chief state school officers—to advance state pre-kindergarten programs.

Another key part of the Trusts' strategy is to reach out to and empower education experts who long ago saw the promise of pre-K for improving K-12 outcomes but did not have a vehicle to spark change. The Trusts supports the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to engage a "cadre of champions for pre-K" from among their members; eighteen members of this team serve as national, regional, and state spokespersons for expanded quality and access to early childhood education. These champions have been strong voices in a variety of venues to support this national movement, creating a network of leadership that extends literally across the country.

CCSSO has planted its own new trees, extending the reach of advocacy from the state to the local level though its series of regional meetings. The three regional meetings, "Education Leadership: Advancing Quality Pre-kindergarten for ALL," are designed to provide professional development and technical assistance to state teams as they create strategic action plans to advance access and quality to the pre-kindergarten programs in their states. The teams, consisting of a chief state school officer and at least two influential district superintendents from each state—chosen for their ability to convey the pre-kindergarten message to other local education officials—work to develop a plan for advancing universal pre-kindergarten in their states. Participants at these events receive the latest information about innovative approaches and practices for improving access and raising the quality of preschool education.

Finally, the Trusts has joined with other funders, who share our commitment to change and empowerment, through our projects to inform preschool policy. For example, the Trusts, in partnership with the Foundation for Child Development and the Joyce Foundation, has created a national task force to provide guidance to states on developing appropriate accountability systems for state pre-K programs,. An emerging part of the pre-K message is highlighting the benefits pre-K offers not only to the children in the program but also to the communities and states that invest in early education. The business community has embraced the pre-K approach and to expand their interest, the Trusts is co-sponsoring, with the Committee for Economic Development and PNC Financial Group, a series of events highlighting the economic benefits of early education. A national conference for business leaders to discuss the economic benefits of pre-K will take place on January 10, 2006, in New York City. The Trusts also engages a variety of independent specialists who have come to their own conclusions about the impact of pre-K, including James Heckman, a Nobel-Laureate economist from the University of Chicago. At various events, he and other economists have described their own findings that show investments in early education, especially for disadvantaged children, provide significant economic returns, as well as positive academic outcomes.

Since 2001, The Pew Charitable Trusts has invested over $42 million in helping leaders across the country advance their dreams of quality pre-K for all. These efforts to deepen the knowledge base through new research and to help diverse constituencies inform the public debate will help all children fulfill their potential of becoming the successful, productive adults that we all want and need them to be.
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The Pew Charitable Trusts Pre K Partners