State Policies
Click on your state to find state policy information on early childhood development and early learning.
Current Policy Approaches
So far, in 2009, at least 41 states introduced legislation addressing early childhood development and early learning. The Alliance is focused on shifting the odds for children in their first five years with an emphasis on the most vulnerable children. Policy approaches include promoting strong families, positive early learning experiences, and good health.
A growing cadre of states across the country are adopting new approaches to investing in young children’s school readiness. With innovative funding approaches – ranging from public-private partnerships to dedicated funding streams for comprehensive, high-quality programs for infants and toddlers to funding mechanisms that link investments in infants and toddlers to those in preschoolers - more states are ensuring that their policies and investments reflect the science that learning begins at birth. To see examples of these approaches in Nebraska, Illinois, Oklahoma, Kansas and Washington, click here.
Bill of the Week
June 1, 2009
Texas House Bill 130
Author: Patrick, Diane
Status: To the Governor
This legislation gives school districts the opportunity to expand their pre-k programs from half-day to full day programs and to improve the quality of the programs for eligible children. The legislation limits class sizes to 22 children, with an 11 to one child per staff ration, and requires certified teachers to have an additional nine hours of class training in early childhood education in an effort to improve quality.
This program is voluntary but districts that choose to offer expanded pre-k services are required to evaluate their pre-k programs for effectiveness and student performance. In addition, the legislation requires that participating districts use a minimum of 20% of their grant funds to collaborate with an eligible community child care provider, such as Head Start and faith based child care programs.
Across the States
- Early Care and Education State Budget Actions FY 2009, from the National Conference of State Legislatures, shows a reported increase of over $650 million in appropriations.
- Use NAEYC’s Early Childhood Workforce Systems Initiative’s state policy database to learn more about these six policy areas: professional standards, career pathways, articulation, advisory structure, data and financing.
- NCSL’s State Early Care and Education State Budget Actions report finds new state investments of over $1 billion to child care, prekindergarten, parent support and other strategies. Find a summary of state actions, a brief analysis and state-by-state information.
- Find all 2008 early care and education legislation through NCSL’s Early Care and Education Legislation Database; conduct searches by category, state, keyword, status, title or author.
- Find your state’s early childhood policy profile from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP).
- Read NCCP’s new report, State Early Childhood Policies: Improving the Odds.
- See 2007 state legislation from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
- Scan state policy update briefs from ZERO TO THREE.
- Learn what governors are doing to promote school readiness from the NGA Center for Best Practices.
- Learn about state prekindergarten with resources from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) and Pre-K Now.
- Search state childcare and early ed data with an interactive map from the Center for Law and Social Policy.
- Find out about states Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) initiatives from NCCP’s Project Thrive.
- Learn about Build’s multi-state system-building initiative.