Four States Pass on Chance for ECAC Grants

Race to the Top and the i3 program are receiving the lion’s share of attention lately, but we shouldn’t forget about another federal grant program made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that could have a positive impact on young children: the $100-million federal program to provide states with grants to start early childhood advisory councils, known as ECACs.

Applications were due on August 1, and funds are already on their way to a few states that sent their applications in ahead of the deadline. Every state, the District of Columbia and six U.S. territories are entitled to some portion of the funds – as long as their applications pass muster with the officials in the Administration for Children and Families who are reviewing them.*

Early childhood advocates see these new councils as an important hub for coordinating and advising states as they put together the pieces necessary to build high-quality early childhood programs, such as better data collection, improved teacher prep programs and quality ratings and improvement systems.

But not all states applied for the federal dollars. To be eligible, states were required to come up with 70 percent of the council’s budget on their own. Private donations were encouraged, but still, the match requirement was a big hurdle, and four states did not even try.

Early Ed Watch checked in with Richard Gonzales, senior advisor for early childhood development and education at ACF, to learn more about the status of the council applications and when states will be receiving their grants. (Gonzales provided a similar status update to federal grantees of early learning programs during the EarlyChildhood2010 meeting in Washington, D.C. last week.)  Here’s what we learned:

The four states that did not submit applicants include Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota and Indiana. Also passing on the opportunity are the Republic of Palau and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

That leaves 51 states and territories to receive ECAC grants, which are designed to be spent over three years.  It also means that there is a little leftover money in the kitty. States with the capability of providing additional matching funds will have the chance to win that remaining money by submitting another application. The administration will be providing more information at a later date on how much those funds may be worth to each eligible state and when the supplemental applications are due.

Gonzales said that the current grant awards will be made no later than September 30, with most of them made by September 1.

We’re eager to see the states’ applications, which will be posted online later this year. The applications will provide details on who will be appointed to each state council and what the councils intend to do. They should also shine a light on how states plan to mesh their councils with already existing groups and offices, such as Head Start collaboration offices or councils that are in charge of coordinating special education programs or children’s health programs.

Another big challenge will be coherence with the pre-k-12 sphere. As officials in federal agencies continue to push for better cohesion throughout early childhood years – from birth up through age 8 (instead of simply ending at age 5) – we need to ensure that these new councils connect with state representatives of education programs in school districts and elementary schools.

In short, there’s a lot of work to do in creating more cohesive systems, and the ECAC funds should provide states with a nice shot in the arm. But the councils “are not a panacea,” warned Rachel Demma, senior policy analyst of the National Governors Association at EarlyChildhood2010. Some states will be hard-pressed to make dramatic improvements in their early childhood systems given what Demma called the “depth of the challenges” that states face in balancing their budgets with recession-era revenues. (The NGA’s Center for Best Practices is providing technical assistance to governors’ policy advisors and others helping to develop these councils.)

As councils start their work over the next year, it will be important to watch whether the ECAC grants will equal money well spent.  

* For a state-by-state list of allocations, see the last page of this FAQ from ACF. Information on ECACs is also available in New America’s report published last fall: The Next Step in Systems-Building: Early Childhood Advisory Councils and Federal Efforts to Promote Policy Alignment in Early Childhood.