Resource Library

In the last quarter of 2013, homeless shelters across Massachusetts were overwhelmed by an influx of young families. Public agency managers from the Departments of Early Education and Care (EEC), Public Health (DPH) and Housing and Community Development (DHCD) mobilized together to help shelters manage, and to reduce the impact on children from instability, trauma and high-stress. Agency managers pooled financial resources from an infusion of Race To the Top funding and in-tervened to help shelter staff communicate and lead in ways that benefited young children and their families in the short-term, and contributed to children’s positive outcomes over the long-term.

This document summarizes the Federal policy recommendations released in December 2014, and profiles innovative policies and workforce supports adopted by States and local leaders around the country who are leading the way by proactively addressing expulsion and suspension in early childhood settings.

This document provides an overview of implementation from the fourteen Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT–ELC) States' Annual Performance Reports for 2013.

This executive summary details how a large body of research demonstrates that high-quality early learning experiences – healthy and safe environments, nurturing relationships with program staff, developmentally appropriate and rich curricula, and supportive services that foster learning and development – are critical to setting a strong foundation for children’s success in school and life. Children in high-quality programs, especially children from low-income families, show greater readiness for school and development of skills needed for lifelong success. Affordable, high-quality early learning programs make it more likely that families will be able to work. Economists have found that high-quality early learning programs have a high return for the public investment, with savings resulting from improved educational outcomes, fewer placements in special education, increased labor productivity, and reduced criminal activity.

This report introduces a career pathways framework 4 in use by several federal agencies, provides a national landscape of states’ requirements for ECE staff related to credentialing, highlights five states at various points in the development of ECE career pathways, and shows how early learning system components used in the majority of states align with the Six Key Elements of Career Pathways Framework that other industries use.

This report discusses the importance of supporting the early learning workforce – nearly a totality of whom are women – not only to improve the quality of early learning programs, but also to ensure fair pay so that they can support their own families.

This briefing highlighted innovative and exciting efforts in AIAN communities to prevent disparities in early learning experiences and outcomes for infants and toddlers.

This report provides information from the 14 States about the impressive progress they are making in reforming their early learning and development systems.

This report:

1. Describes the Tribal Home Visiting Program, grantees, and family and community contexts that influence implementation of the program;
2. Highlights the expanded reach and availability of home visiting services in tribal communities as a function of the Tribal Home Visiting Program;
3. Tells the story of program implementation across funding years, highlighting successes and areas of improvement;
4. Describes technical assistance and systems of support provided to grantees;
5. Summarizes grantee performance measurement and grantee performance in legislatively mandated benchmark areas; and
6. Suggests recommendations for improving program reach, supports, and requirements.

This 50-state profile project plus the District of Columbia, excluding territories, migrant and tribal information provides a snapshot of early childhood data available for children who are experiencing homelessness in each state. The Office of Early Childhood Development hopes these profiles will provide information for local, statewide and federal conversations and planning toward the goal of ending family homelessness by 2020.