Early childhood education is increasingly being cited as one of the most important factors in a child’s future success. 75% of a child’s brain development and 85% of intellect, personality, and social skills are developed by age five. And, several studies, most notably the High Scope Perry Preschool Project, estimate that every dollar invested in early childhood education returns over seven dollars by the time a child turns 19.
For the past few months, we’ve been working on implementing a system that rates early care and learning programs, and also provides those programs with the programmatic and financial assistance they need to improve. The system is called QUALITYstarsNY – and just recently a field test of the system was completed in 200 early care and learning programs across the state.
Because of the instrumental role that early learning programs play in developing our kids’ minds to prepare them for college and successful careers, it is important to ensure that the program they attend are meeting certain requirements.
More than 20 states in America have already enacted similar initiatives to rate programs – can our children afford to be left behind?
We’ve been working with an amazing coalition, WinningBeginningNY, to advocate for full implementation of the system, which would make the voluntary program available to all early care and learning programs in New York.
Recently, our research and education affiliate, the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, along with WinningBeginningNY, produced the great video below that gives a description of the QUALITYstarsNY program.
How can you help? You can start by signing the petition to urge Governor Cuomo and members of the legislation to enact QUALITYstarsNY.
Do you represent an organization? Adding your organization’s name to our list of supporters helps us make a big impact with decision makers. Click here to add your organization’s name in support of QUALITYstarsNY!
Want to learn more about the issue and help spread the word? Click below to download our fact sheets (pdf):