>Home >State Partners >New Jersey >New Jersey's Synopsis

Through Build New Jersey, consensus has been achieved among a new group of stakeholders on a vision and a blueprint for a comprehensive, coordinated early learning system. The cornerstone of their plan is a proposal to create an Office of Early Learning in the Governor’s Office. New Jersey’s early learning system framework concentrates on early care and education and integrates relevant elements from the fields of health, mental health, nutrition, parenting, and early intervention/special education.

New Jersey’s blueprint contains eight recommendations:

• Make high-quality preschool available to all four-year-old children.
• Create a competent workforce of early childhood professionals through better professional development and adequate compensation.
• Improve the quality of the child care system.
• Improve service coordination and make early learning a priority for state policy and funding.
• Ensure that parents are engaged in policy and program decisions.
• Mount a statewide education campaign on the importance of early learning for parents and the public.
• Support and educate caregivers to improve the quality of early care and education.
• Support families with young children to parent effectively through education, support and access to services.

The lead grantee in New Jersey is the Association for Children of New Jersey, a nonprofit advocacy organization for children that has focused heavily on early care and education issues since 1998. A Core Team functions as a planning entity and steering committee for the Build Initiative. Build is an umbrella to support the advocacy efforts of the various groups working on early learning issues, and each group is responsible for specific recommendations in the Build policy agenda.
New Jersey’s 2006 Build goals are to:

• Advance components of the Build agenda to create a comprehensive, coordinated system of early care and education for all children in New Jersey.
  
  
• Advocate for a governance structure.
• Ensure that early learning programs are available and accessible to parents and children.
• Improve the quality of early learning programs.
• Create a well-trained workforce of early childhood teachers and caregivers.
• Engage and support parents in their role as their child’s first and best teacher.
  
  
• Educate, inform and empower policymakers and the public to expand investments in early learning for all young children in New Jersey.
  
  
• Conduct an advocacy campaign to promote the Build agenda with state policymakers.
• Conduct a communications campaign to educate and engage the public in support for early learning.
• Develop new champions to support the early learning agenda.