Today, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced a $500M competitive grant program focused on improving early-childhood education for low-income and disadvantaged youth, in addition to a $200M competition for states that didn’t win RTTT.

Delaware is well positioned; and Governor Markell’s recent $22 million dollar investment (and the Joint Finance Committee’s subsequent approval) to improve our current system came at a great time.

As mentioned previously, there would be three primary measurements for state applicants, all of which Delaware has addressed.

• Improvement in workforce qualifications: The Institute for Excellence at the University of Delaware is a state investment that enhances the qualifications of the workforce, including professional development and grants for programs that are working to improve quality through training staff.
• Coordination of services to create a seamless system: the Interagency Resource Management Committee brings together the three agencies (Education, Kids’, and Health and Social Services) that administer early childhood services, and these leaders are working together on a data system through Race to the Top and Head Start funds.
• Public-private partnerships: Vision 2015, the Stars quality rating and improvement system, and the Early Childhood Council are already making a difference.

We are thrilled that early-childhood education is finally getting its due and believe Delaware is ready to compete again with other states.

The Delaware Department of Education recently announced that the University of Delaware’s Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL) was awarded $3 million to lead implementation of Delaware’s development coach initiative.

Development coaches are a critical component of Delaware’s first place Race to the Top application.  Twelve coaches will be responsible for working directly with principals and assistant principals in 4 to 7 schools each to ensure successful implementation of our DPAS II teacher evaluation system.  Their primary goal is to ensure that teacher evaluations are conducted with rigor and accuracy within and across schools and, ultimately, improving instructional practices within classrooms.

Development coaches will be trained over the summer and will work with districts and charters over the course of two years, with the initiative concluding after the 2012-2013 school year. 

Other announcements at the State Board meeting included:

• The completion of the interviews for the Delaware Leadership Project
• The review of applications for the Leadership Coaches initiative
• Hiring underway for data coaches and the State Board Executive Director
• Final Race to the Top district plansare due June 1, with notification of funding soon after 

It’s a big day for kids, families, schools, businesses, and our state. The Governor’s proposed early childhood investment has been approved by the Joint Finance Committee of the General Assembly! A round of applause for all those that made this happen is due.

Yesterday, the JFC approved the Department of Health and Social Services’ increase in Purchase of Care subsidies of $9M, which will enable the state to subsidize early childhood services at 65% of market rate and increase rates at $.50 per day. And today, the $3M in the Department of Education budget was approved, which would provide infrastructure and merit awards to support programs as they improve their quality ratings. And just a few minutes ago, the Office of Management and Budget components were approved, including the $10M for quality incentives for programs as they reach the 3, 4, and 5 quality ratings.

As the first increase in Purchase of Care rates in six years, the first direct state investment in the quality rating system, and the establishment of a tiered reimbursment system, this is a huge milestone. The magnitude of support for this has been overwhelming and unquestionable; it included the providers, the DSEA, the Superintendents, United Way, Vision 2015, Early Childhood Council, the business commmunity, parents, and many others. This unanimous outpouring of support no doubt helped legislators make their decisions and will help maintain this investment as the budget gets finalized before June 30. Thanks to everyone who is making this possible.

Social Venture Partners announced today that they will no longer operate after this year, noting that they will “discontinue operation under the current model.”  Board members intend to stay involved in advocacy for quality early childhood education, but have not determined the strategy through which they will do so.

Their final investments total $64,000 to the Latin American Community Center, Kingswood Community Center, Mom’s House Wilmington, and the Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children Behavioral Health Program. Since 2002, the SVP  venture philanthropy model has engaged partners (investors) in the investees (early childhood centers and other initiatives), as board members or in other roles. SVP has madenumerous investmentstotaling $1.5M over the years including:

• expanding access and quality to early-childhood education programs, and supporting their assessments of children;
• supporting the work of Sherlynn Aurelio to align Kindergarten readiness expectations among providers and the Christina School District;
• the TEACH scholarship for early childhood educators; and
• advocating for policies and practicesthat benefit kids in early-childhood settings.

As one of the long-time supporters of SVP Delaware, we look forward to working with so many committed partners in determining the most effective ways to engage their tremendous talents and passion.