By Dana Friedman Implementing state pre-k policy is extremely challenging for several reasons. In many communities where the demographics are changing, underlying racism and xenophobia can turn away non-native English speaking parents seeking to register their children for pre-k because they have not brought with them documentation proving residency. I witnessed this firsthand at a Long Island school in one of the eleven underserved districts where The Early Years Institute works to improve school readiness.
Joan Lombardi Director of Early Opportunities LLC
Lombardi explores chapter 8 of Rising to the Challenge. In this chapter, Debi Mathias chronicles the history, trends and innovations that have come to characterize this unique way of thinking about quality. In many ways, QRIS was the heart of the Early Learning Challenge as it was one way to assess a primary goal of a program: to increase the number and percentage of low-income and disadvantaged young children enrolled in high-quality early learning programs. This made the validity of the standards particularly important.
Susan HibbardBUILD Initiative Deputy Director
BUILD's deputy director, who also co-directs the Early Learning Challenge Collaborative, writes about the opportunities provided by the ELC-RTT. She also cites the many ways that the Early Learning Challenge has been a jumping-off point for important work by states in early childhood systems building in the last two years.
Gerrit WesterveltBUILD Initiative Executive Director