Governor's Role in Aligning Early Education and K-12 Reforms: Challenges, Opportunities, and Benefits for Children. White Paper

To increase student learning and achievement, more and more states are pursuing reforms in "both" early care and education (ECE) programs and the K-12 education system. Many states are implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to promote all students' readiness for college and careers, while engaging in reforms prompted by the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTTT-ELC) grant competition to expand children's access to high-quality programs for early learning. Ideally, these initiatives would support and reinforce each other's goals and approaches to education--especially across the birth-to-grade 3 continuum, when research shows children acquire critical skills for academic success. Well-aligned ECE and K-12 reforms and policies would enable states to develop common expectations on what children need to know and be able to do as they transition from early childhood programs to the primary grades. Unfortunately, in most cases, aligning reforms in the early learning and K-12 systems is challenging. Typically, these efforts are led by different state entities and policymakers with limited knowledge of one another's goals and strategies. ECE and K-12 leaders also tend to have different approaches to teaching and learning and even different beliefs about the objectives. As policymakers who have the responsibility for the well-being and education of children of all ages, governors are uniquely situated to bring state agencies together and develop a coordinated strategy to align ECE and K-12 policies so they better serve all children, starting at birth. Doing so requires leaders from both systems to analyze what their respective goals, approaches, and reform strategies have in common and how they differ. This process can help governors, their staff, and other state policy leaders develop concrete action steps that promote greater alignment of ECE and K-12 reforms in key areas: (1) Leadership and Governance; (2) Learning Standards; (3) Child Assessments; (4) Accountability; (5) Teacher/Leader Preparation and Professional Development; and (6) Resource Allocation and Reallocation. (Contains 23 endnotes and 4 resources.)