Early childhood education grants
Michigan $51,737,456
Georgia $51,739,896
Pennsylvania $51,734,519
Kentucky $44,348,482
New Jersey $44,286728
Vermont $36,931,076
Total: $280,778,157
It wasn’t the $120 million Mega Millions payout, but $51 million isn’t exactly a box of crackers.
Georgia will collect $51 million through a four-year grant from the federal government to improve the state’s early childhood education system. The state is one of six that will split $280 million, the U.S. Department of Education confirmed early Thursday.
Gov. Nathan Deal said Georgia, the winner of two multimillion-dollar federal grants in the past three years, will use some of the money to implement a kindergarten assessment system to determine where children are academically before they begin school. The money will also be used to expand access to high-quality child care for low-income families, train early-childhood teachers and put extra resources into areas of the state where test scores and other academic indicators show the greatest need.
“Thank you for doing this for our state,” Deal said in a conference call Thursday with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the governors of other grant-winning states. “We know we can show benefits for our state. We are just pleased and honored to be a part of it.”
Deal’s tone was different from the one he took as a candidate for governor in 2010, when he said he would not accept a $400 million federal education grant for which the state had applied. Too many federal strings would be tied to that money, Deal argued.
Georgia won that grant, and, once in office, Deal didn’t send the money back. Thursday, he thanked the Obama administration for including Georgia in the $280 million early childhood education grant program. Republicans have frequently criticized the Obama administration for what they describe as excessive federal spending, but Deal didn’t go there on the conference call.
“Please express my appreciation to the administration,” he told Duncan.
Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning will administer the grant.
Bobby Cagle, who runs that department, said a big chunk of the grant, $24.9 million, will be used to expand the state’s child-care rating system by expanding financial rewards to centers that participate.
“It goes without saying we’re thrilled,” Cagle said. “We really feel like this is an endorsement of what we’ve done for many many years and what we’ve done these last three years with the quality rating system” for child care centers.
Georgia lost out on a similar grant in 2012 to states that already had a child-care rating system. The state has since implemented its voluntary rating system.
Cagle said the applicant reviews “pretty roundly rewarded us for the work we’d done on our quality rating system.”
Georgia and the other winning states — Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont — must show a willingness to carry out comprehensive improvements to programs focused on children from birth to age 5.
Pam Tatum, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Quality Care for Children, said the funding will allow Georgia “to significantly improve the quality of child-care programs.
“What is most exciting to Quality Care for Children is that it also funds strategies to ensure that our most vulnerable children, those children at risk for poor developmental and educational outcomes, have access to high-quality child-care programs before they are of age to attend Georgia pre-K program,” Tatum said.
Of the 17 applicants — 16 states and the District of Columbia — Georgia scored second highest behind Michigan. Georgia received 292.67 points out of a possible 315, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Pat Willis, executive director of the advocacy group Voices for Georgia’s Children, said she sees the potential for big payoffs.
“Short-term, it should increase the quality of our early education programs,” Willis said. “Long-term, the investments in assessments and evaluation can provide more solid evidence of the value of early investment that might eventually compel us to expand state funds for young children beyond the lottery.”
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