It's no secret that California's budget is in a disastrous state and education funding is at historic lows. Despite the lack of funding for transitional kindergarten and school transportation in Gov. Brown's proposed budget, there is some hope for the quality of early care and education in Merced County.
On Dec. 16, the U.S. Department of Education and Health and Human Services announced the winners of the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Grant and California was one of the nine states selected for funding.
California is set to receive $52.6 million during the next four years starting this month.
California's plan was unique because instead of submitting a statewide plan, the approach was to support a voluntary network of Regional Leadership Consortia. The Merced County Office of Education, in partnership with First 5 Merced County, is one of 17 entities from 16 counties invited to participate in the successful application. Other counties include Alameda, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Ventura and Yolo.
The Regional Leadership Consortia are made up of mostly county offices of education and First 5s.
While the lead agency for our state is the California Department of Education, in Merced County, MCOE is the designated lead agency in partnership with First 5 Merced County. The state will be responsible for training, distribution of screening tools, curricula development for higher education, and evaluation.
Parents and families are included in local decision-making.
The main goal for each member of the consortia is to develop and implement a quality rating and improvement system for early care and education settings. The focus will be on three areas of program quality: 1) child development and readiness for school; 2) teachers and teaching; and 3) program and environment quality.
Merced County was uniquely prepared to participate in the state's application because of its long history of innovation and excellence in early care and education.
This grant money will also help MCOE with one of its overarching strategic goals, which is to provide high quality programs that result in increased learning. Numerous studies point to a high-quality early care and education program as a tool to help close the achievement gap.
While the RTT-ELC grant in Merced County will not increase the number of spaces for children in early care and education settings, its goal is to increase the quality and effectiveness of current programs in order to improve the readiness of children for kindergarten, which is their first step down a long road of education.
The author is Merced County superintendent of schools.
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