American Recovery and Reinvestment Act/Stimulus Package and Early Childhood
New! Opportunities to Incorporate Young Child Data into Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems through American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Funding
Written by Charles Bruner, with Michelle Stover Wright
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $250 million to the Institute of Education Sciences within the United States Department of Education to carry out Section 208 of the Education Technical Assistance Act. The Secretary of Education is authorized “to award grants, on a competitive basis, to state educational agencies to design, develop, and implement statewide, longitudinal data systems to efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, disaggregate, and use individual student data, consistent with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.” This document provides valuable information related to this funding source.
Written by Anne Mitchell and Louise Stoney, Alliance for Early Childhood Finance. The federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the “Stimulus Package,” includes a number of appropriations that have relevance for early childhood policy and systems change. Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) are increasingly seen as a foundational piece of systems-building strategies, since they enable states to leverage resources and bring other components such as standards and professional development into alignment with one another. This memo discusses potential resources for early childhood under the Stimulus Package, and identifies ways that these funds could be used to support QRIS.
