Using Strengthening Families to Meet
the Goals of Race to the Top Early
Learning Challenge
About Race to the Top Early Learning
Challenge
• More than $1 billion in competitive state grants
• Three rounds of awards between 2011-2013, 20 state
• Opportunities for public comments on goals, priorities and
criteria
Successful states: proposed ambitious plans and targets to
raise program quality, improve outcomes for young children
and increase the number of high-need children who are
attending high-quality early learning and development
programs.
RTT-ELC: Building Systems to Improve
Quality
• Absolute Priority: Promoting School Readiness for
Children with High Needs
• Application Centerpiece: Tiered Quality Rating and
Improvement Systems
Key Opportunities in RTT-ELC
• Help families build protective factors and build parent
capacity;
• Involve parents as partners and decision-makers;
• Support children’s social and emotional development; and
• Leverage resources and build partnerships across
systems
Help families build protective factors and
build parent capacity
“Building Blocks” of a high-quality system:
• Early Learning and Development Standards
• Comprehensive Assessment Systems
• Early Childhood Educator Qualifications
• Health Promotion Practices
• Family Engagement Strategies and
• Effective Data Practices
Help families build protective factors and
build parent capacity
Definition of Family Engagement Strategies: Culturally and
linguistically responsive strategies [that are] are
successfully used to engage families, help them build
protective factors, and strengthen their capacity to
support their children’s development and learning
Source: Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge, 2013 Executive Summary,
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetopearlylearningchallenge/applicant.html
Involve Parents as Partners and
Decision-Makers
• Involvement in RTT-ELC planning and implementation
• Involvement in early childhood assessment processes
and resulting decisions for individual children
• Guidance to support early learning and development
standards at home
• Inclusion of family engagement and protective factors
content in workforce competencies, teacher preparation
and professional development
Support children’s social and emotional
development
• Workforce Knowledge and Competency Framework
includes effective behavior management strategies that promote
positive social and emotional development and reduce
challenging behaviors
• Health Promotion standards include involving families as
partners and building parents’ capacity to promote their children’s
physical, social, and emotional health
• Competitive preference: Identifying and addressing health,
behavioral, and developmental needs from 0 – 5 and building
families’ capacity to address these needs
Leverage resources and build partnerships
across systems
• Organization and alignment of the system to provide the
diversity of services and supports needed by children and
families
• Leveraging existing resources to promote family support
and engagement, including through “home visiting
programs, family resource centers, family support
networks, and other family-serving agencies and
organizations”
What RTT-ELC Grantee States are Doing
• 20 states received RTT-ELC grants
• 13 included plans to build on existing Strengthening
Families work or initiate or deepen early-stage
efforts
• Strategies align to the five core functions that
support Strengthening Families implementation and
sustainability
Alignment to Core Functions of
Strengthening Families Implementation
• Build an Infrastructure to advance and sustain the work
• Build parent partnerships
• Deepen knowledge and understanding of a protective
factors approach
• Shift practice, policies and systems toward a protective
factors approach
• Ensure accountability
Source: Core Functions Of Strengthening Families™ Implementation, CSSP,
[link]
For more information
• CSSP Issue Brief: Using
Strengthening Families To Achieve
Race to the Top – Early Learning
Challenge Goals (2014):
http://www.cssp.org/reform/strengthen
ingfamilies/2014/RTT-ELC-and-SF.pdf
• Race to the Top– Early Learning
Challenge website:
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetoth
etopearlylearningchallenge/index.html