 So to me this is the really fun part of the program and we've a lot of a fair amount of time for it Including a lot of time for questions. So I'm hoping that why you're hearing these key people talking nitty-gritty about the work that they did both in making Early education programs a political reality and then putting them in place and making sure that they were well implemented Think about the questions that you have both about their states and about other states So let me introduce each of them and let me start there there are on the panel two political champions and two administrative champions in this in in that are that are here Ruth Kegi, I mean it's gonna do this Comes from the state of Washington and she Worked very closely with her Republican counterparts In the state legislature she chairs that the state's house of representatives early learning and human services Committee and she has been involved in early education really since her election to the legislature in 1999 She's also past chair of the national conference of the state Legislatures Human Services Committee, so that's Ruth Lloyd Jackson from West Virginia literally wrote the book on For this for the state of West Virginia is the author of and the prime mover behind the That legislation when when we ask people in these states Who were the key who were the go-to people in terms of running the programs and making the programs happen? You're seeing four of them here Lloyd is now the vice chair of the West Virginia Board of Education Susan Broman You ask folks, so who do you talk to in Michigan about you know this huge expansion of a high-quality Preschool program and there's one answer everybody comes back to Susan Who oversaw the doubling of that program between 2013 and 2015? She is the deputy superintendent for the p-20 system and student transitions division in the Michigan Department of Education Let's say that fast you can manage that which includes the office of great start that we're we're talking about and finally Karen ponder of North Carolina has been present since really the beginning of this Comrade arms with Governor Jim Hunt who many of you know or know of as a as a leader in the Field these days. She's working with the states as a childhood consultant developing early childhood systems builders and with three national organizations including Lions for early success and child trends But she's where she really has had made her mark is in being the president the founding president of the North Carolina Partnership for children where she helped create smart start and she ran smart start this brilliant Program very different in design for zero for birth to three initially for its first 15 years So I'm going to join the panel and I'm actually going to ask Lloyd if you could actually both could scoot down a chair so I can sit over here. Thanks And I have a few questions to ask but I've said to my panelists the idea is to have fun to have a conversation not to do a prepared Talk will begin. I want to begin by Satisfying my curiosity and I hope yours as well about some of the Political aspects of the story and then since politics and administration not exactly bright lines separated programs We'll talk back and forth about how the politicians the administrators work together and then about the challenges that you had in making this happen but My job mostly is to ask the questions and and get out of the way so we can hear from the people who know Every state that has had that has had successes in building a high-quality early education program has had a Political champion or champions to push the program doesn't happen by itself So I have two questions to start for both of you one of them is you design very different kinds of programs West Virginia and Washington both high quality programs quite different. How did you decide on the design? Where are you gonna what you were gonna focus on how you were gonna get to quality and then how did you go about building support? both inside the legislature and outside the legislature, so let's let's start there with Ruth you want to be in Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I really appreciate the the chance to share the Washington story with you And I can't emphasize enough how much science and research have driven policy in Washington in early learning Over a decade ago We had dr. Pat cool from the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences come and Speak to the Appropriations Committee about her work on how children learn language and She has this wonderful machine at the University of Washington that actually measures What's happening in a baby's brain? in response to adult interaction and It really engaged the legislature in the fact that those first few years Bear a direct relationship to what happens in K-12. We had a 25% dropout rate at that point We were spending enormous amounts of money and still do on remediation and That's what really hooked the legislature was that science and Then we've had a series of reports come out as David mentioned on The effectiveness of high quality early learning on the ability of children to enter school ready and to succeed And last year when the early start bill was introduced we We had two reports come out one from Jim Minervino, which was funded by the Gates Foundation focusing on exemplar preschool programs and Clearly demonstrating that quality makes the difference if you don't invest in quality don't bother and That lesson we just hammered home over and over again throughout the session And we also had a report on our own preschool program Which is over 30 years old that it was having a two and a half hour program Was having an impact through the fifth grade in the ability of children to succeed in math and reading? so that combination of science and research I Has come together to support our high-quality pre-k program But also to assure that we are focusing on birth to five We're not just going to get kids ready for school through preschool Because we recognize the first three years are also critical and we must invest in high quality Childcare as well as pre-k if we're going to get kids to school ready to learn So, Washington is really interesting just to sort of Supplement that because they're making a huge investment in boosting the quality of childcare through coaching And we're all watching because it's an important way to reach a lot of children One of the points that Ruth also made and it's true for three of four panelists There are a lot of national studies of early education But it was really important in Washington and Michigan and North Carolina that the homegrown studies of the home programs Showed results West Virginia relied on other folks and is now bringing in Near and I alright to do a study of the West Virginia program But it matters how your program matters and there's the lesson for that is build in evaluation As early as you as you can in the process so a very different program and it and a different and a different strategy and also High-quality program Lloyd. Do you want to talk about this? Yes, we sort of backed into our program in West Virginia We had to address an issue in a few of our counties where the declining coal economy meant that our public schools were competing with Head Start for four-year-olds and We had legislators who saw that as displacement or federal dollars by state dollars And they didn't want to see that continue and attempted to stop four-year-olds from entering into our public school program Which schools could do at that time and so Some of us said no, we don't think that's the right answer We began a study of this whole problem and in a program by the name of edgacare has developed It was really a birth through five program because we already had full-time kindergarten for our five-year-olds But when we could see we couldn't afford all that We really made this strategic decision to do what we could afford and we picked the four-year-old piece In large part because we could build those kids in the state aid formula our state aid formula in West Virginia Is an entitlement program? We count in October and the number of kids that we count or what the legislature has to fund and so our ability to build the four-year-olds into that program as opposed to putting the other students in what might have been The Department of Health and Human Resources, which is subject to legislative funding on an annual basis Really meant we started with the four-year-olds. We haven't neglected the birth through three We're working towards that but the four-year-old was really important for us I will also say we phased it in over ten years and here's why we did that first of all We did we when we did five-year-old kindergarten before I was in the legislature They did it so quickly that 17 of our 55 counties found themselves in deficit situations trying to catch up Working those kids in the system with this program. We knew statewide unfortunately the bad news was we were losing enrollment in West Virginia We tried to time the growth of the four-year-old program within declining enrollment in our other grades So that we didn't increase the state aid formula dramatically by adding these kids a couple years ago I asked the folks at the department how close we were we were within 200 out of 17,000 kids and being at that same number So we were able to build these kids in without dramatically increasing our state-aid funding Legislature didn't jump ship on us because of that and today we have a universal program The 76% of our children and I might say about that if you look at the children who are in Particularly faith-based programs in West Virginia who don't count in that number Because they don't want to be part of the state system We perceive we're probably closer to 90% than 80% in West Virginia right now with our four-year-olds So what what led you to decide on a universal model? There are not many states that have that have done that And it's obviously more expensive than focusing on the poorest kids as Washington among other states has done Well to two reasons number one. We thought it was the right thing to do Like it or not in West Virginia we have a lot of areas where they're on a lot of affluent people My kids when they were when they were young I grew up in a rural community And I live in a rural community where there was no early childhood program of any type period paragraph So my wife who was fortunate not to have to work every day Drove my kids an hour every day each way to Huntington, West Virginia to put them in an early childhood program And that went on for five years of her life in my kids lives I understood then how important it was for my kids And I really thought if my kids had the benefit because frankly I can afford it Why shouldn't every child in West Virginia have that same benefit? And we were just able to pull it off the second thing is if you put them in our formula in West Virginia It's the state aid formula for all the kids in West Virginia if children show up Then they're entitled to be paid for and we saw no reason to try to carve out four-year-olds and make them any different than anybody else in West Virginia so what I'm hearing is The next step for you is to look at the birth to three We're already good grass. We're looking at right Is Universal early education on the agenda in Washington and if not should it be on the agenda in Washington? we had a bill to create universal pre-k about four years ago and the fiscal note was over four hundred million dollars and And it just couldn't get out of the Appropriations Committee I think the cost of universal pre-k is so great that we're Probably not going to be looking at that what I would like to do is expand our Eligibility for our ECAP program Which is currently a hundred ten percent of the federal poverty level, which is very very poor and get that up so we have More Families taking advantage of that, but we've got we've have an entitlement for serving low-income Children in pre-k, which is both three and four-year-olds and we have a ways to go. We're only about halfway to Achieving that entitlement But what's remarkable to me is the depth of the legislative commitment on both sides of the aisle in both chambers To high-quality early learning and we are less and less separating out pre-k from child care we want the same set of high standards for both and we're heavily investing in workforce development to get particularly our child care providers up to Up to that standard Lloyd talked about the value of building in to the education budget pre-k funds And I know when in Washington the idea was again launched didn't go any place Oh, it did yet past the legislature. I didn't didn't didn't write the governor didn't make it right didn't get sign And we talk about this in the in the report as to what the different views are on that You're now facing a court order to spend a ton of money on k-12 You've already invested a lot of money in higher education recently How is how in that context and that's really a general question pre-k doesn't stand alone I mean it in in West Virginia presumably k-12 pre-k-12 was competing with other with other programs there and certainly in Washington Pre-k is with a limited budget. How do you how do you carry on? expanding pre-k in the in the context of those competing education demands well, we've built a very strong Foundation with bicameral bipartisan support. We have a governor who is really a champion for early learning and It's going to be a horrendous fight. We have to put probably three billion dollars into k-12 Per a Supreme Court ruling. I'm currently in contempt of court Along with every other marshal's out in the back. Please please stay away until Ruth is finished before you take her away and leg irons So that's a huge challenge But I think most of the legislature now understands if we put three billion dollars into k-12 and we don't invest in early learning We're not going to get the results that we're looking for in k-12 and that Connection between early learning and success in school. I think will will really be the telling point in being able to sustain our investments the other piece of it is in early start We included language that basically made it an entitlement. We didn't call it an entitlement but for all of the quality rating and improvement incentives and scholarships and And tiered reimbursement to assure that higher quality programs get a higher reimbursement The language is this legislature shall fund So it will be part of maintenance going into the next session a trick that You've certainly used And so I think we'll we'll have a good starting point at the beginning of session, but it's going to be a war There's no question about it David, let me add that it's just coincidental that in the room today is the governor who signed the bill in West Virginia when we passed it governor Bob Wise is back here someplace and Bob was governor the state at that time and what many question early childhood was going to get taken care of West Virginia when Bob was governor You made quite the dynamic duo, and I'm so glad that you're here governor It's interesting that the convert and I do by the way I want to pick up when we when we sort of switch gears to talk about North Carolina Which in a sense made the same kind of investment in improving the quality of child care And that's a lot of what the smart start program was about but what's in what what we haven't talked about much With the two very adroit politicians in the room is the politics of this thing How did you manage to work? How did did you need to and how did you work across the aisle? What kind of allies outside the system? Did you find you mentioned the importance of the research community? But there were certainly other key players in this in this story How did you how did you build a political coalition if that's what it took? How did you build a coalition of outside of outside support to make this happen because everybody? Everybody likes little kids right every politician can't resist the opportunity to kiss one of them in a campaign But actually getting money into the hands of People who are going to teach those kids and then getting quality money into that. That's a that's a harder list So how did you do it? I? Can tell you in West Virginia because of the the struggle that started with who is going to get the four-year-old? We were forced to look at this whole issue and in the folks at ECS at that time and In SREB where we're a southern region education board state and the folks there Particularly David Denton who wrote a very influential piece It was one of these pamphlets were things the legislators read a lot of and it I recall the name of it was preschool matters, but quality counts And the same thing and that both assistant Rodriguez and the new president of ECS told us And by the time we got through two years of arguing about who was going to get the four-year-olds people really understood the importance of it So I would say First of all that in West Virginia in those days the other side of the aisle was pretty thin There were a lot of people in the other side of the aisle and the second thing is Policy really mattered people pay attention to what goes on at ECS and our members attend the SREB meetings They had heard so much about early childhood and in this these sort of programs. It was an easy sale when the time came great well again, it's the the science and the the research but all those advocacy groups but When Governor Greg war was running for office in 2004 Governor Hunt came to Washington for to give a speech and I took him over to talk with her about how The business community had supported his campaign Because he was running on early learning and she heard that and early learning really got on her radar screen And when she became government governor, she was really a champion But that research and science also convinced a lot of business people in Seattle that this was a direction the state should go and They actually advocated for the creation of the Department of Early Learning Helped us form Thrive by Five, which was a public-private partnership and on that board Sits Steve Litzel who is the senator who chairs the early learning in K-12 Committee in the Senate and we formed a very good relationship around early learning And we got to dinner together. We met Every week we last year during the early start we got together and met with the advocates and With the four corners to talk about what was happening who was on board who was a problem How we need to focus the lobbying efforts and the advocates were Outstanding particularly fight crime investing kids We had the sheriff or police chief for many Republican members meet with them and talk to them about the importance of Pre-K and and childcare as a prevention of Criminal activity you know crime prevention So that was very powerful. We also had the press on our side the Seattle Times Covered the research and the science of early learning for several years and Really educated the public and so we had all the the child advocacy groups Who were supported by Gates and coming together into an alliance that really worked together well? And we had cops and we had doctors and we had teachers. We had a very very broad alliance That was invaluable and getting the bill through. I mean we ended up making an investment of 158 million dollars In our last budget, which was pretty outstanding great I want to again. There's not a sort of great divide and I'm sure that you're listening to this there are things that you're gonna say you want to say about public-private partnerships and developing The quality of early childcare. I when we talked before I said I had great admiration for the people Who met who ran these programs because it was a little bit like being the conductor of a symphony orchestra lots of different Musicians and you want to make sure that the tuba player isn't out of tune and that the you know The drummer doesn't decide that she's gonna go off and do some kind of a drum solo So let me put the broad question to you Which is what's it been? You know you've both been really good at the work that you've done How have you done it? What challenges have you encountered? Let's just start at that level and be as general or specific as you'd like But I just want to say that that the thing that our strategy that really helped us in 1994 when we didn't have all the research and the Maps to go by the thing that helped us was that we knew Politics is local and so we designed a plan where every county has its own local smart start office, so it's like a You know like a local school system. It's a local early childhood office and we built Advocacy networks that were from the ground up so every every partnership knew its legislators both It's local legislators and it's and it's DC Legislators and they were constantly and we you can't just assume this is a lesson I learned that people when you tell them they should do this they're going to do it And so we had to literally put the tools in their hands And I sent a person from door to door to all 100 counties Helping them develop their legislative plan on an annual basis That's I mean that's what it took to make it some are very sophisticated But others don't have that Sophistication and so it was as the at the North Carolina partnership our job We literally existed to support the local communities to be successful And so whatever it took is what we did including back in the day Connecting them to the internet so it was like it was literally grounds up work But our two prongs were advocacy and building coalitions so Both at the state level and in communities We built coalitions with all the people who cared about early education But needed to focus on the two prongs of our program which were smart start and and North Carolina Pre-K and so it was helping us come together for example at the state level And not kill each other Advocating for our one little issue when we really needed to advocate for a bigger system So I would say that was the political part that was our responsibility and that we took very seriously Well, I you know, I'm remembering when I was in North Carolina Learning about that program some years back I was in the legislature and I met somebody from one of the very conservative Appalachian counties who is a supporter. I said how come? He said well, I don't know much about this, but I hear from all these folks who were there This is really important for our kids and if they say it's important for our kids, then I'm gonna support it Right, so it was the true non-partisan You know they're probably Slews and social programs that he wouldn't have been interested in but this one he liked and I think that is what has allowed us to survive the really tough times we've had with legislators who now want to cut taxes and reduce all even social budgets So if we didn't have that strong local support I don't think we would have survived that you can't be good enough at the state level to argue about to argue successfully without having that that network that's Talking to people they know Well, Michigan went through a what I would call a one-state Recession and we had really Awful ten-year period when you mentioned Governor Granholm was incredibly supportive of early childhood however state resources were Haremis, I mean we were cutting everything During that period of time. We built similar to North Carolina a network of great start collaboratives across the entire state But there was not one particular service we were looking at as we did research and really looked at what is going to sell in Michigan what kept rising to the top was preschool that that's where most people were comfortable and so we use that to really work with the business community the Collaboratives as well as who are not mentioned often the philanthropic computer community to basically start supporting the advancement and increased funding in preschool and so with this group and coalition of people coming together and supporting it I Remember when I was still in the foundation world the first meeting Governor Snyder had with the foundation community He asked every foundation. What are your priorities? 75% said early childhood So He knew he had that Constituency supporting him as well as we had the Children's Leadership Council of Michigan the business community that was supporting it as well as the advocates and so it was somewhat easy in Marshaling all the people so what made Governor Snyder? What what led him to be a supporter of the program because he he succeeds a governor a Democrat who was a supporter of the program Often people come with new agendas and what he did was to double if I understand double the budget program What what gave him the impetus to do that? Well, there were a couple things number one, he's a metric guy and Return on investment Really spoke to him number two. We had the high scope study of our GSRP program on Michigan residents that proved that reduced Retention increased graduation rate all of these pieces So he looked at all of that and said well, this would be a really strong investment The other piece was that one of his strengths and what he wanted to do was develop talent in Michigan So that we remain competitive globally. Well, he also knew that That started earlier. So he used the brain research all of that To really propel this as well as then he reorganized state government to form the opposite great start I just curious in North Carolina You have Frank Porter Graham Center and you have folks the University of North Carolina Doing research some of them in and out of government. How important was that research in Propelling and sustaining the program Legislature had the good judgment to put a huge Evaluation budget into smart start for the first ten years And so we had 32 studies of smart start success during those years And then when we added pre-k with governor easily was elected and we Convinced him that was the next approach to early education They also put money into the budget for the next ten years of studying that program So it was wisdom on their part It wouldn't it didn't seem as important to me as it did to them and it proved to be our saving grace because it both Taught us what we were doing. We should change, right? And that was the wonderful thing about our evaluators at Frank Porter Graham. They they taught us You know, they looked at real specific parts of the program instead It would be better if or you might consider doing this and we did those things And so it it made our evaluations get better and better and by the way Duke has been studying the overall success of all our work not just a particular program, but It shows that the investment of smart start and more for our North Carolina pre-k together Now the children that they've looked at are just have just finished 6th grade and the the gains the huge Games they received are holding now through the 6th grade. So they're writing this up as we speak It's not published, but it's always more affirmation that you were on the right path when you were just making it up, right? Now we've talked about what the aspirations are in terms of expanding programs North Carolina's program like the programs of three of the four states is a program focused on poor kids and And and Michigan's program is a high-quality program focused on poor kids and poor four-year-olds So so there are obviously ways in which you could Grow you could have more kids in the more more kids in the program You could make a universal program you could think about targeting programs for birth to five, which is where both West Virginia and Washington seem to be sort of thinking about what you do more more broadly What's what's next on the agenda for your states? Art start is a universal program. So it is for birth to five Regardless and so we keep hoping to increase the funding for all children But then pre-k pre-k is a targeted program for the most at risk four-year-olds but the the the thing that people don't Typically understand about our work is all of our four-year-olds Have to be served in three four and five-star programs So if you're a four-year-old in North Carolina, you you cannot you're going to be in a higher level program so while 4k has the best the highest standards we meet all the quality Indicators We're trying to do that for all children So when you pull out the population that is specifically in the program There may be in the same school where those four-year-old targeted programs are Programs that actually are have the same kinds of teachers the same kinds of standards So what we hope to do is and we see more for our North Carolina pre-k as a funding stream That's focused specifically on that population as I feel like we should I think if you're in four-year-olds If you're a four-year-old and you're at risk you need to have the highest possible Program, but we want all the programs to be that high and now Almost 80% of our children statewide are in four and five-star programs And I mean that it took us 20 years to get there so it's not a quick fix But if you keep your nose to the grindstone and People that really got it early Then you eventually can Susan couple things When Governor Snyder Created the opposite great start he moved childcare to the office and that was a signal to Basically transform childcare from what I call child storage Works work support program into an early learning program That's easier said than done But that is the process we are going through with childcare with quality rating and a lot of the improvements in there Super 10 Winston from Michigan who is back there came in a year ago and Has established a top 10 and 10 plan for the state of Michigan so that Michigan ends up in the top 10 one of the strategies is Pre-k for four-year-olds all four-year-olds by 2020 and For three-year-olds by 2025 So that's the bold vision as well as looking at what I call all the wraparound services that need to be available for young children and continuing Into the early grades, so that's our agenda Interesting you were talking about tray my bias you were talking about having one class for poor four-year-olds in a In a school and then right next door. There's a class for for tuition paying Parents and wouldn't it be nice if those students were in the same classroom because they learn as you know so much From each other But it for my for the purpose of saying that We count children based on their funding stream for pre-k and so it makes the number look smaller than it Because we're we're trying to serve all children that way So I've been so far I've been doing all the questioning and I'm wondering What questions that you you've been listening to really interesting accounts from other states do they prompt thoughts about? Gee that's like what we're doing or I wonder how you did this or sir some there are things that you want to Chat about amongst yourselves before we turn to the audience Well, I'm so impressed with You know the coverage and North Carolina at your 20 year dedication to building the grass roots I'm very envious of your 100 County base We haven't taken that approach, but we have built the broad coalition at the at You know that reflects in some communities, but certainly not all Right we have regional coalitions The other thing that's interesting in terms of the universal pre-k versus targeted is we've again used the research on the impact of high quality pre-k on Low-income children compared to the general population and we just have scarce resources So we're really focusing on that Population so here's a little fact. I'll just interject for future conversations Poor kids come to school far behind middle-class kids middle-class kids come to school as far behind well-off kids as poor kids Are behind middle-class kids so it's not as though there isn't a need It's that there are priorities and and the reality of limited resources and I think you know Washington is is remarkable for what it's been able to do in a world Which is it's I was told this when I was in Washington Then I looked it up the most aggressive tax system in the in the country's living in that world is just amazing What you know, it's it's very challenging Other comments or questions or thoughts I just like to say that Governor Jim Hunt is certainly Been the inspiration for much of what goes on in early childhood in the American certainly in the south And and we certainly appreciate that and are very envious of The smart start program that and and what goes on in that earliest piece what you've accomplished there in particular As you said the local support you've built for that We the governor did commission and I served on the panel that helped put together the study for our pre-k through Four-year-old program and we have a lot to do at that level and in order to do it in this day and age The way our legislature is now we're going to have to build that local support. So we may be to see you about that You know one thing I did forget to mention is accountability is also a big part of I think our success story so far and We have assessments in child care and pre-k and and we have a Universal assessment walk-ins when kids come into kindergarten that assesses all six domains So it's it's not just cognitive. It's social emotional and physical and everything So our legislature is going to be able to tell Where our early childhood investments are working and where they're not and be able to modify and improve the program and You know, we're going to rise and fall on that accountability system before not succeeding We're going to know and I Were we will suffer or be rewarded for those results And as Susan was saying you're no longer in the child storage Business you're in the childhood. I banned babysitting from my committee about 10 years across across the board Okay, one more and but before you do I just want the audience To to be ready to with your questions and comments for these folks There are people with microphones out there. I think who are going to be Circulating among you so just raise your hand if you've got a question or a comment and and they'll come to you Karen Oh, the accountability issue. I think that is just so important and because of that As somebody said earlier, you know, local communities can be unwieldy sometimes in what they Want to spend the money for because there's so many needs it's hard sometimes to corral that So we put standards in place that they had to achieve toward these bigger goals of the state For example, they were tracked annually on how many what percentage of their children were in the highest quality programs and what percentage of their Poor children were in the highest programs and because of that They moved those bars so fast that now the legislature made a law that subsidy can't go to children Unless they're in the highest programs So just to say that that accountability is actually on every level of the work So I want to bring Marjorie back up here as the chief author of the of the report There's a rabbit share from behind you Oh, okay And we will open this up for questions about particular states These are people lots of experience not only in their states But have certainly had experience across states and Marjorie has led this research team In doing the project that you've that you've been hearing about I think anything having to do with early education in these four states and you feel more brazen more broadly about the politics and administration of early education fair game for the Michigan's expansion or doubling was incredibly fast Within two years we doubled the size of the program and one of the concerns especially legislators concerns was This is not going to work that the program quality is going to go down what we found because The early childhood specialists go in three times a year and do the program quality assessment We had that and that information to be able to talk about the quality of The programs all of them and in fact with the expansion it has gone up results so it is possible if you Maintain and hold to the quality standards and don't compromise on them to Expand that rapidly and still maintain quality. That's great. So I'm having a hard time seeing because of these Klee glides So if there are other hands from people who have questions of Hi Over here on the side I think the speaker is over there Hi, I'm Emily Dropkin. I'm with the National Head Start Association And really appreciate that a number of you have touched on the role that Head Start plays in how your state systems work and Roberto as well earlier this morning At NHSA we're excited to see how the growth we're excited to see that early childhood is expanding But recognize that our most vulnerable children and families often need more intensive health social emotional Family support systems that go above and beyond what some universal systems are able to offer every family Can you speak to the need for the a range of different models and programs for the different children and families in your states? Sure, you know in West Virginia 80 over 80% of our classrooms are collaborative. Most of those are with Head Start And you walk in our classrooms the children who receive the services you can't pick out from the kids who aren't The issue that we have with Head Start is not really an issue with Head Start is that frankly They don't fund their teachers as good as we do ours and their staff support and that causes some problems in some of the Counties as we work through those issues, but it's still working through You know when we first passed this bill Head Start was one of our biggest opponents That to pass in the bill and it didn't take a year before there were bigger supporters Because now they're all working together and collaboratively in this effort. It can be done It would be a lot easier if Congress took off some of the restrictions that kept Head Start from doing some of the things They ought to be able to do and would even work better if they would better fund their workers in in these classrooms to be Equal to our teachers because unfortunately what happens is a lot of their workers get the credentials that we ask our teachers to have And they move over to the state system because better retirement benefits and things, but it's still working in West Virginia And we're very pleased with it and we think it will continue to work From the beginning was having Head Start as a key member of the local smart start Coord a required member in every county and then building coalitions with Head Start in every community in every small community so that they're you know We try to blur the difference between Head Start child care in public school programs Because we know that regardless of where a child is served We want the same high quality program for that child but the more they've shared resources and work together and actually You know shared funding and other resources the stronger that partnership has grown It's a key part of our work and we actually fund Head Start for higher quality for being able to pay their teachers more in Michigan The expansion of preschool approximately 10% of the entire slots are in Head Start programs They're GSRP Head Start blend So half the day is paid for by Head Start the other half the day is made for by the Great Start readiness program And we required that the programs all meet the highest standard of either To improve the quality one of the things I just a real challenge in trying to blend Head Start and E-CAP because Teacher if she has both in her classroom has to have two sets of reports and Head Start is not very flexible in some of their requirements So that has been a major challenge But our key a cap program is pre our state pre-k is is based on the Head Start models So we provide the mental health family advocacy health It's a comprehensive program. So this is the challenge that I was going to raise It takes very very able and adept and imaginative Administrators to figure out how to weave together a whole bunch of programs federal and state programs that have Different different ultimate goals or so they think but they really are the same goal But they have different requirements and different rules and sometimes it is the classroom teacher They get stuck doing the paperwork or it's the middle or it's the the school administrator or the district administrator This is a sort of memo to whoever in Washington thinks about these things seriously It sure would be nice. We make the lives of the people here and people in the States easier if there was a way of Streamlining simplifying and unifying what the requirements were so that that transaction costs of the paperwork were Dramatically reduced Hugely that that is a sink probably the single most important contribution and in terms of the amount of dollars It would say it's worth time saved You know, we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of wasted time In West Virginia when we passed our program the statute itself was fairly bare bones But we required the Department of Education Department Health and Human Services Where Head Start was sort of located in West Virginia to propose to the legislature a joint rule and the program the four-year-old Program couldn't be implemented until that rule was approved by the legislature And so they had to go together and do that it took them almost two years I think to put that rule together One of the one of the elements that had to be in the rule was the maximization of federal dollars We wanted to solve that four-year-old program of people competing for those and so it meant that instead of competing They had to braid that money together and frankly they did a very good job of that I mean it we still have a few bumps in the road, but they did an excellent job of it I applaud them for what they did and it really was we just told them they had to do it before we could have any Program and they made it work and the people Department of Education gave and they gave it work other questions there Okay, can see me. Yeah, we don't know how I work with the NASBE National Association of State Boards of Education So I work with state policymakers So I have two questions first question is well, Lloyd So I know you Transfer your role from a legislator to a state board of education members. So My question to you is how do you see this shifting of roles and how do you see state boards of education show? in terms of advancing West Virginia's early childhood education and I have second question is about how to Get state policymakers to work together closely Because sometimes we say there's no governance in your early childhood education But we have to realize that there are actually a lot of players in this game So my question is second question is to Lloyd and also Ruth that as a state policymakers So how do you have any experience or best practices you can introduce to other states? Great question. Yeah. Well, first of all full disclosure. I'm one of our members now. So But I can tell you it really they really are different roles Although in West Virginia, you know that the I don't have to tell you the roles of state boards of education across the country very Significantly from state to state and in West Virginia. We have a very strong state board in the Constitution We are mentioned in the Constitution were named the Constitution We have special powers that other agencies don't have in West Virginia And so the legislature has been through the years has been very good about passing general policies And telling the board to adopt very specific policies to implement those So I've gone from the person who wrote the general law That said you got to work all this stuff out and make it work now the person who has to write the policies and make it work and In West Virginia, it's worked very well for us the board and the legislature historically have had very good Relationships there's been a little frayed with the change in the legislature in the last few years But still we've had very good relationships And it has been one where they can tell us the 40,000 feet thing They want to see and we can draft the policies when the time comes Well, we've been very fortunate to have a superintendent of public instruction for the last eight years Who's been very supportive of early learning and we? Formed an early learning partnership early on with Department of Early Learning OSPI and Thrive, Washington and its sense has expanded but really assuring that we were all in sync and Walk is the assessment. I mentioned at kindergarten that really has required an alignment between our early learning programs and our kindergarten readiness expectations and kindergarten teachers not only have to meet with parents before school starts and really get an idea of what each child's challenges and and What their expectations are but they also are supposed to meet with early learning providers who have served these children coming in so we're really trying to build a strong linkage and In direct response to the board question. I'm really not familiar of With any activity the board has been engaged in related to early learning because their purview is K-12 and Early learning is Department of Early Learning, so we've worked very hard to make sure that linkage is strong Anybody else out there with a back here. Good morning. I'm Dr. Patty Garcia. I'm with the National Association of Latino elected and appointed officials And so we've done work in early learning with our policymakers and include schoolwork members municipal officials Higher education trustees as well as statewide legislators and any members of Congress And so my question similar to my colleague from NASB is in aligning these systems and key stakeholders across the educational pipeline And you mentioned DEL Doesn't sit within K-12 governance So how what insight do you have on how to make sure that those systems are aligned and those governance structures from School board members that you're ever whatever ECE structure you have higher education trustees So you're relaying all that information as your training current teachers That that goes straight into your your school districts But you're also funneling that information down to your early learning structures So any insight that you might have good question for anybody on the panel? That information with all the linkages and networks, but it's not just the Department of Early Learning in as in Washington's case It's not just their job. It's the education. It's the public education system When we know what the right thing is for young children to improve school outcomes Then we all have to take responsibility for doing our part with that So I think in a system where everything is not under one umbrella and I can debate that two different ways Whether that's the right thing or not But where there are partners in all these different agencies then everybody has to have a commitment to educating and and Engaging people about it. It's nice if you have a state early learning council that is effective in doing that I see some that are in some that aren't But that's another way, but just I think we have to Not expect it to be one but to be all that are that are educating and Other comments about When we did our recent report on early childhood education That is the issue that dominated the most dr. Lynn Kagan came down and spent some time with us many of you may know her and We spent more time on how we were going to govern that structure than anything else It's a very difficult question. I think sort of Depends on a state-by-state approach West Virginia at least four-year-old through the through 12 The state board of education has has dominance in that area and we can be sure there is consistency When we get below that we haven't solved that problem in West Virginia yet I'm not sure there's a perfect way to do it. I'm not sure Dr. Kagan went through all these models and we kind of looked at everyone of them and when we did that thing We never could get enough of these to feel comfortable that we found the right answer yet. Well, we've aligned the tools Teaching strategies gold is used in walk-ins and it's used by a child care providers And we are through the accountability system. We built Early learning providers are going to get feedback on whether or not kids going into kindergarten are ready and So there's going to be an exchange of information to really provide a quality loop And feedback so that they can strengthen their programs In Michigan the opposite great start is located within the Michigan Department of Education So the state board of bad Here's in deals with early childhood issues on a regular basis Another piece that was in the executive order creating the off-scrape start was that the Michigan Department of Education work collaboratively with the Department of Community Health as well as the Department of Human Services to address early childhood issues So there is at least a mechanism where all of the department's dealing with early childhood come together on a regular basis So we can take one more question But as we do I want to put I want Marjorie to be to put her on the spot as we listen to a question because You're that you've you know been involved in all of this work reflecting on what you've heard I'm sure the audience is interested in knowing sort of what your what your takeaways are But I don't want to put you on the spot yet. So if there's another question There in the audience that would be great. I see a question over here. I can actually see it Hi, it's Helen Blank with National Women's Law Center. I have an overall comment Question for Susan in in Michigan because I think it really it relates to this somewhat I Think pre-k is a tremendous strategy and it's interesting because you all go way back your state's roots Recognizing that it was an important part of the early childhood puzzle from 1984 and Washington to the early 90s in West Virginia to 1989 in Michigan and South Carolina and North Carolina have could sort of put the whole thing together early on for Jim Hunt You you can't have children exist only with pre-k and What's going on with childcare is fairly horrific. We've lost 364,000 children since 2006 we're ignoring the commitment we made when we ended TANF which is also impacting poor families to provide child care We're also losing tons of providers not only from the subsidized system But all your states are losing regulated family child care providers The new reauthorization Puts enormous pressure on states on the cost this year would be 1.2 billion additional There's only 25 million dollars new money in the in the Senate Appropriations bill for a head start. There's only 36 million with lots of new regs So there's something going on that I think we need to pay attention to we're going to support children and and Low and low wage moms Michigan particularly interested in Susan especially for Detroit Michigan's had and no one will deny it a very bad child care history It's lost so many children it pays the lowest rates in the country to child care providers that pays by the hour So my instinct is in Detroit. They're very few. There aren't that many formal sets There aren't many formal providers left because of the low rates in poor neighborhoods But I read an article in the Times this week about the voucher about the whole child education system in Detroit and what the sort of vouchers gone amok and What's happened to the public schools? So my question is really very sort of specifically to Detroit How are kids getting pre-k in Detroit and how is what's going on with the? Historically with a subsidized child care system and with the schools Impacting what are the particular choices of pre-k? How do you control the quality because I guess I'm from Detroit So I can sort of see it in my head, but I'm very curious as to what it what it looks like so the pre-k and How pre-k is administered in Michigan is through the intermediate school districts so the Michigan Department of Education Allocates funds to the intermediate school districts There are 54 that we allocate to a couple are a consortium and they ultimately Allocate the slots and the funds to community organizations, whether they be local education institutions or community-based organizations to provide Pre-school and so that's the entity that really oversees and Provides the funding and looks for providers in the Detroit area So it's separate from the Detroit public schools So I I want to thank you for that comment because it's a it's one of many reminders that this is a long road to get to high quality Care and education for kids birth to five and some places have the resources and have the political will to get farther down that road than others but The challenge of finding and paying for folks who are providing child care Is certainly a big part of this story so Marjorie final comments or thoughts before we first I want to Thank our esteemed panelists for coming and sharing your state stories It's so much better hearing it from you than from me. This is not easy work This is complex when you're talking I think early education. It seems so simple. You just got this small little kid But there's a lot of kids and they're all really different and they all have really different needs and and Some come from homes with lots of books and some come from homes and they're hungry and they all need something and We're talking about so many different programs. We're talking about preschool. We're talking about child care We're talking about zero to three and and thinking about how these can all work together as a system for all of these Children, it's not easy. There's challenges. We've talked a lot about the great things these states have done They've all faced challenges. This has not been an easy road and it's a road. They continually There's you know a tree falls down in the road. There's no funding all of a sudden in Michigan because of the automobile industry collapse or You know, there's a new governor comes in who has different priorities, but I think the lesson is it's complex It's not easy, but it's really important work. There's a public mandate to do this We heard that earlier this morning the public supports this We know it's good for kids and we need to just keep working together Keep this a priority keep quality at the center of it And we should all try to keep doing the best we can for these little kids out there Thank You Marjorie and let's let's join in thanking our panel for really Extraordinarily helpful. Thank you so much