Georgia officials are hoping for a $70 million federal cash prize aimed at improving school readiness for the state’s 825,000 youngest children, especially the 54 percent identified as low income.
The state met a Wednesday deadline to apply for a federal Race to the Top grant, submitting a 1,200-page plan to assess the skills of new kindergartners, launch a new child care rating system and increase child care subsidies so some of the poorest children can attend some of the highest-quality programs.
Gov. Nathan Deal, who is on a trade mission to Asia, said Georgia's application "will be very competitive.
"Our Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge application is focused on moving from a state with good early learning programs to a great early-learning system," Deal said through a spokeswoman.
Georgia last year won a $400 million, four-year Race to the Top grant for K-12 education reforms, including a 26-district pilot of a controversial plan to tie teacher pay to student achievement.
This year, the Obama administration announced a new $500 million Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge. Neighboring Tennessee, one of the first winners of a K-12 grant, opted not to apply this time, citing concerns about the long-term sustainability of programs created with one-time funding.
Critics contend that money in this program, like the original Race to the Top initiative, comes with too many strings. Others accuse the Obama administration of trying to impose top-down solutions to education, similar to his health care reforms.
Georgia and the other applicants will know by Dec. 31 whether they will receive the grant money, which also will be doled out over four years and is expected to be split among five to 10 states.
Georgia is considered a long shot for this grant. The state is going up against some of the 25 states that automatically earn points in the application process for having childcare rating systems in place or in the works.
Bobby Cagle, commissioner of the state Department of Early Care and Learning, announced last week that the state has had a daycare rating system in the works for six years and will be rolling it out early next year, regardless of whether Georgia wins the $70 million.
Under the new rating system, licensed Head Start facilities, home childcare, daycares and public and private pre-kindergartens would be identified as "good," "very good" or "excellent." The 6,000-plus centers would not have to participate, but could collectively earn $12 million in bonuses in the four years for signing up.
The rating system would carry a big price tag -- $76 million over four years. Private foundation money and other, primarily existing, state funds, would cover the full $121 million cost of what's proposed in Georgia's applications.
Child care subsidies would be increased to make high-quality centers, which are traditionally more costly, accessible to students with higher needs, largely the low income and disabled, the commissioner said.
"A high-quality program that brings in 15 to 20 children who receive subsidy payments would get a bonus subsidy payment as a reward for doing that," said Laura Johns, DECAL's director of quality initiatives. "What we typically find is as quality increases in a program children with high needs are denied access because of costs."
About $13 million is slated to be spent on an assessment that would be administered to kindergartners in the first two months of the school year. Another $3.6 million is earmarked for training on a set of learning standards being developed for children, from birth to five years old.
About two years ago, Georgia started assessing kindergarten students throughout the year and giving them a score on first-grade readiness at year's end. The new assessments will help kindergarten teachers know earlier a student's skill level and needs, Cagle said.
This earlier assessment may not be easy, said Beth Graue, professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and associate director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
"While assessment is absolutely a part of instruction and learning, doing assessments of young children is incredibly difficult, particularly at the start of the year," Graue said.
In their grant application, Georgia education leaders emphasized the state's leadership in early childhood education, largely through creation in the mid-1990s of the nation's first universal, voluntary pre-kindergarten program, using lottery funds.
The application also emphasizes that 443,743 children in Georgia, or 54 percent of all children ages birth to 5, are low income, meaning their family income is no more than 200 percent of the poverty level. In addition, it points out that housing and construction downturns in metro Atlanta and a severe drought in rural Georgia have compounded the economic crisis for some of the state's families.
All 50 states were eligible for grants of $50 million to $100 million, depending on the state's relative population to low-income children. Larger states, including California, New York and Texas, are eligible for up to $100 million, while Alaska, Mississippi and Iowa could receive $60 million.
If Georgia receives the grant, nine state agencies will be involved in some of the projects. The governor will chair a committee that will oversee its administration, Cagle said.
Race to the Top plan
Georgia wants to spend $121 million improving early childhood education, especially among low-income children. The $70 million Race to the Top grant would pay for most of those plans, with existing tax dollars and private foundations paying the balance. How some of the money would be spent.
Daycare rating system $76 million
New kindergarten testing $13 million
Training $3.6 million
What is Race to the Top: President Obama's education grant program that will award more millions of dollars to states developing ambitious yet achievable plans for early learning education reform.
Why Georgia is vying for the money: "Research continues to demonstrate that an achievement gap exists long before children enter kindergarten, and only by improving the quality of services for Georgia's zero to five population can this gap be reduced. The projects and activities listed in the grant application demonstrate Georgia's commitment to the state's youngest citizens." -- Bobby Cagle, commissioner of the state Department of Early Care and Learning.
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