Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge

1. Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge

2. Purpose of the grant Purpose is to improve program quality and services coordination for infants, young children and their families to maximize infants and young children’s learning and development, starting during pregnancy

3. Grant Snapshot • Dec 31, 2013 through Dec 31, 2017 • Pregnancy to Eight • Result of 2 years of work of four state agencies and NJ Council for Young Children • One of 6 states to receive the grant (NJ, VT, KY, GA, PA, MI) • Grant award: $44.3 million

5. The Early Learning Challenge will help Build Our System

6. Who’s Involved • Department of Education • Department of Human Services • Department of Children and Families • Department of Health • The Inter Department Planning Group • The Early Learning Commission • The NJ Council for Young Children • Head Start Collaboration Office • Stakeholder Groups

7. At the heart of the grant is the identification and implementation of common standards across all of our agencies through Grow NJ Kids, our Quality Rating Improvement System

8. Grow NJ Kids drives the improvement process Like a “Consumer Reports” of home, center and school-based care and education programs for birth to five.

9. Grow NJ Kids • Road map to achieving quality for early learning and care providers • Sequenced levels of evidence-based practices in health, family and community engagement, early learning and assessment, workforce development and administrative practices • Assistance and resources to help sites progress through the 5 levels • Incentives for participation • Rating processes • Evaluation of efficacy of the system • Outreach to ensure provider and family participation

10. The grant will allow us to: • Finalize the school/center based tool • Develop and test the Family Child Care tool, and begin rollout • Rollout will be cross sector

11. Our targets

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16. The Projects

17. Create A Sustainable Early Childhood Training and Professional Development System Establish an Early Learning & Development Training Academy with 3 regional locations (at IHEs) What is it? Training hubs with endorsed/certified trainers in required tools, measures, and curricula in Grow NJ Kids Purpose? To provide training and support to the Quality Improvement Specialists and will be a resource for all early childhood programs in the state

18. Align Early Childhood PD Systems • Finalize the revisions of New Jersey’s Core Knowledge and Competency Framework & Career Lattice; • Meet targets for professional development and higher education institutions and agencies that do not yet use the Framework by working with the Higher Education Commission; • Conduct mid grant and end of grant higher education inventories to track progress

19. Set up the Grow NJ Kids Incentive System • Quality enhancement grants(budgeted at $500/room with a max of $10,000) • Scholarships • scholarships for teachers and directors ($6,000 over 2 years) • scholarships for teacher assistants ($2,000 over 2 years) • scholarships for Family Child Care directors ($2,000 over 2 years) • Professional development, on site coaching and mentoring • Hire a consultant to help establish a fund for incentives through public/private partnerships and set funding targets

20. Develop Grow NJ Kids Rating System • Create an Early Learning Improvement Consortium (ELIC) to draw in at least 3 colleges/universities to begin conducting the ratings

21. Validate Grow NJ Kids • MOU to validate the system to answer 4 questions: • Do our indicators differentiate quality? • Is our technical assistance effective in moving sites up through the levels? • Are higher levels associated with better outcomes? • Are we using the ratings protocol reliably?

22. Promote Family Engagement & Health • Expand central intake hubs to six additional counties (one stop shop for connection to services) • Establish county-level parent-led Councils for Young Children in all 21 counties • Increase the number of infants and young children screened for social-emotional and developmental concerns

23. Publicize Grow NJ Kids for Target Families • Begin 3-year campaign to promote Grow NJ Kids and make public aware of program standards

24. Support the development and connection of early childhood data systems • Create infrastructure to link data across state systems • Expand current Workforce Registry • Support Licensing Data System

25. Extend support to kindergarten-3rd Grade • Pilot technology-based curricula designed to boost children’s mastery of math and literacy skills; • Create guidelines for 1-3; • Create modules for implementation; • Build capacity of teachers and leaders in k-3 settings by focusing on optimizing instruction, using data from child assessments and measures of instruction; • Establish steering committee to create an evaluation component

26. Implement a Kindergarten Entry Assessment • Complete a phased-in voluntary statewide implementation of the KEA between September 2014 and September 2019 (not grant funded)

27. Integrate and align the standards from birth to eight • Articulate and align New Jersey’s birth to three and preschool standards with the K-3 standards • Include early learning standards (infant/toddler and preschool) in regulatory documents- licensing, Child Care, home visiting, Early Intervention, Family Child Care • Create self-paced training modules • Train cross sector

28. What will happen if we are successful Coordinate programs and funding across state agencies Prepare workforce to meet particularized needs Common evidence-based program and learning standards (Grow NJ Kids) High Quality Early Experiences Connect families to comprehensive services Healthy, Happy, Ready Kids Data systems to track and support programs, children, families and workforce