2024-01-28 10:00:42
What North Carolina can learn from other states
Early Bird readers, hello again. Newcomers, welcome! If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up here to receive it every two weeks, and join our conversation on issues facing North Carolina’s young children and those who support them. If you’re already a subscriber, please help us reach more people by sharing this with your friends and co-workers interested in early childhood education.
A classroom the Early Bird team visited at Mission Grammar School in Boston.
If you’ve been following the Early Bird team for the last few months, you know we’ve been traveling across the country to learn from states that are leading the way in early childhood policy and investment.
We’ve traveled more than 13,000 miles — by planes, trains, cars, and boats — from Salem, MA to Salem, OR.
Katie and Liz take a water taxi across Boston Harbor from the airport.
Back home in North Carolina, we spoke with more than a dozen experts about what we learned. They helped us understand how the strategies we identified on our Learning Adventures could work in the context of our beloved home state. Here’s what we found.
Advocacy from the business community, grassroots organizing, streamlining governance, and identifying/creating new funding streams were all essential strategies in Michigan, Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, and New Mexico.
Experts told EdNC that North Carolina is well-positioned to adopt these strategies, and reclaim our position as a leader in early childhood policy and investment.
With the funding cliff looming this summer, the time is now.
One thing that kept coming up in the states we visited was the question of how to recruit, retain, and better compensate the early childhood workforce. Some states had strategies in place to work on addressing these issues, but no one had it all figured out yet. And several told us that’s their next focus. Maybe this is an opportunity for North Carolina to be an innovator?
Katie and Liz recreate an iconic scene from Good Will Hunting in Boston Common (at Liz’s insistence).
We’ll be watching alongside all of you to see what happens this year…
In the meantime, check out Liz’s article on the specifics of New Mexico’s early childhood journey, and my article about outdoor learning environments at sites supported by Halifax County Smart Start.
We’re excited to be back in our home state, and we’re ready to come see all of the amazing things y’all are doing for our littlest learners this year!
Until next time,
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