All Eyes on Illinois …

Now that President Obama has signed the stimulus legislation into law, early education supporters can shift their speculative energy toward what the administration’s broader early childhood agenda will look like. During the 2008 campaign, Obama promised a substantial, $10 billion investment in early education programs, including new “Early Learning Challenge Grants” to states, but provided few details about what those programs would look like in practice.

Today: All Eyes on Illinois…
Thursday: Duncan’s Record in Chicago
Next week: Q-and-A with Barbara Bowman
Next week: What’s been cut

A closer look at early education programs in Illinois and Chicago might provide some useful hints. Both President Obama and Arne Duncan, his secretary of education, hail from the Windy City, and both played a role in expanding early education programs in Illinois and Chicago. It seems reasonable to expect that their experiences will inform their federal policy agenda for early education.

There are a lot of reasons to be impressed by early education in Illinois. Not only is it one of the few states working towards universal pre-k for 4-year olds by 2011, it is the only state pursuing universal pre-k for 3-yearolds too. Illinois’s pre-k program, Preschool for All, gets strong marks for quality, earning 9 out of 10 stars on the NIEER checklist.

But perhaps most impressive from a policy standpoint is how early education in Illinois works as a system. Illinois has a strong coordinating body called the Early Learning Council, which is responsible for collaboration between the three principal early education programs in the state: the federally funded Head Start programs, the state-funded Preschool for All, and a childcare voucher program. Illinois supplements these programs with investments in teacher quality, including a wage supplement program and a generous scholarship program to help teachers earn higher credentials. The state also has a quality rating system to provide parents information about program quality, and is building a strong early education database with statistics on providers, the programs they offer and how much demand exists for available slots. Under the leadership of the council, each of these components work together to provide an array of early education opportunities that are of high-quality and aligned with curricula and standards in the elementary grades.

Moreover, Illinois has managed to coordinate all of these programs without sacrificing provider diversity. Preschool for All uses a variety of providers, including public schools, community based organizations and private centers, as long as the providers meet certain administrative and quality requirements. This has worked well because local and state K-12 agencies, Head Start and other child development programs, work together effectively to ensure efficiency and parent choice.

Illinois is also ahead of the game in offering comprehensive services to children under 3 and their families. The $380 million Illinois Early Childhood Block Grant, which funds most early education programs in the state, includes an 11 percent set-aside for infant and toddler programs. To ensure the quality of services provided with this funding, the state developed standards and quality indicators for birth-to-three programs, which are aligned with standards for pre-k and elementary school.

What might all this tell us about the Obama administration’s likely approach to early education policy? There are several points of symmetry between what exists in Illinois and the president’s proposals. During the campaign, Obama pledged to create a Presidential Early Learning Council–modeled after the Illinois Early Learning Council, which he supported while in the Illinois legislature–to improve coordination and collaboration across early education programs overseen by different federal agencies and offices. And Illinois’ block grant program could be a potential model for Obama’s proposed Early Learning Challenge Grants. Though we don’t yet know what those grants might look like, if they are modeled on the Illinois program they could provide a single and relatively stable pool of money that funds multiple early childhood programs in each state.

One possibility is that the administration may require states that receive the grants to establish their own Illinois-style Early Learning Councils. Many states already have some version of these councils in place since federal law mandates that every state have an advisory council on early childhood education and a Head Start Collaboration office. But many of these bodies lack the funding and political clout to succeed. Any forthcoming federal legislation should provide that clout, carefully considering what it takes to encourage inter-program and inter-personal collaboration and to give state Early Learning Councils a strong public voice.

As the administration puts together its early education agenda, two other points from Illinois’ experience are worth noting. First, Illinois would not have achieved what it has on early education were it not for the work of an active and sophisticated coalition of advocacy groups, educators, academics, business leaders, and political leaders who worked to keep early childhood programs, and program quality, on the top of the agenda. Many of these individuals have stayed active throughout, even as Illinois’ early education programs enter their third decade. They include Barbara Bowman, who has advised Obama and Duncan, and Jerry Stermer, who was recently named chief of staff to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. While this coalition has suffered some legislative defeats, they are also responsible for the steady growth of early childhood services and funding, culminating with universal preschool in 2006.

Second, it is important to look not only at what programs Illinois put in place but also at how state and local officials managed the growth of early childhood programs. Growth of programs in the state has been fast, steady, and generally smooth, without the more serious problems that have plagued early education expansion in some other states. However, the biggest growth spurt, following the launch of Preschool for All in 2006, was not without hiccups. Head Start officials in Illinois, for example, have said they found it hard to get a seat at the table. While they now have a very good relationship with other programs in the state, their experience shows how existing programs can be left behind when attention and resources shift to fund new programs.

Illinois is one of a handful of states at the vanguard in providing coordinated early childhood services. We will be watching how they handle emerging challenges, like English language learners and tight state budgets. Keep an eye on Illinois, because chances are, the President is too.