Tools

Data visualizations, mapping tools, and questionnaires

Photo: Flickr: WOCinTech Chat

A Note on Tools

This is a collection of tools to help policymakers, education leaders, and other stakeholders determine where to get started and develop strategies for transforming the workforce. Use them to pinpoint disparities in a particular state or locality, reveal new avenues for collaboration, and serve as prompts for deeper discussion with leaders in your institution or community.

Mapping Professional Roles, B-8

This tool was developed in 2015 to accompany the Transforming the Workforce report. It is designed to help communities and states get a fuller picture of the multiple roles and positions held by individuals across the landscape of child development and learning from birth through age 8. The tool can be used to build a map of the landscape for your particular state, locality, or initiative. It groups professionals in different spheres to show how they interact and uses different colored lines to show connections between settings and professionals. Go here to use the tool (registration is free) and learn about Kumu, the company that created it.

Questionnaire for Uncovering the Inner Workings of a State's Policies

To transform the workforce, state leaders should play a large role. But sometimes they are stymied by complexities in the way a state is governed or how different policies have been enacted. To be effective, they will need to delve deeply enough to uncover their state’s internal systems, structures, and regulations. This questionnaire, designed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and New America, is intended to help—consider it something akin to an MRI machine for scanning a state’s policy and regulatory structures. The answers that come from this questionnaire can help people spot where opportunities, gaps, and blockages exist and where infrastructure is strong and weak, while also helping to establish paths for moving forward. For more information on how this tool was applied in scanning three states (Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin), see Uncovering the Inner Workings of States' Early Childhood Polices: Results from a New Tool for Changemakers Focused on Transforming the Workforce. Additional information is available from the Power to the Profession initiative.

Cover of Questionnaire by NAEYC and New America NAEYC-NewAmerica_state_policy_questionnaire 2017.pdf

An Interactive Map of Policies on Principals and Center Directors in all 50 States

The quality of an early childhood education program is largely dependent on an often overlooked group of professionals: school or program leaders. In 2017, New America conducted a scan of state policies on leader preparation requirements, licensure, professional learning, and compensation. This tool sheds light on the current expectations for center directors and principals, identifies areas for improvement in state policy, and highlights states that are leading on leaders. Explore the interactive maps and see how your state compares, here.

Ranking States on Birth-3rd Grade Policies that Support Strong Readers

In 2015, New America’s Early & Elementary Education Policy team developed a birth-through-third grade state policy framework. It includes state policies in seven areas that are essential for supporting children’s literacy development:

Educators: Teachers and Leaders;
Standards, Assessment, and Data;
Equitable Funding;
Pre-K: Access and Quality;
Full-Day Kindergarten: Access and Quality;
Dual Language Learner Supports; and
Third Grade Reading Laws.

Using this framework, New America ranked 50 states and Washington, D.C. into the categories of Crawling, Toddling, or Walking based on their progress toward achieving 65 policy indicators across these seven individual policy areas and across all of them together. Use the interactive maps, which can be accessed here, to figure out where your state should focus its efforts.