Accountability
One of the key elements missing in Minnesota's current system for early childhood care and education is accountability. Before additional funding is allocated to improving early childhood education, the state needs to establish sustainable accountability measures to measure success and progress.
In order for every child in Minnesota to be prepared for school, the coalition recommends reinforcing the statewide public policy objective already found in state law that ensures all children (ages 0-5) must be ready for school by 2020 and establish milestones each year to ensure meeting that goal.
In order to help measure the state's public policy objective and the overall success of early childhood education in Minnesota, the coalition recommends formally adopting the state-established set of domains and mechanisms that can act as mile-markers for gauging success.
Specifically, there are five domains of school readiness already used by the Minnesota Department of Education that can help shape all decision making around early childhood education:
- physical development
- the arts
- personal and social development
- language and literacy
- mathematical thinking
Implement Accountability Measures
In order to establish a climate of accountability to ensure every child meets the goal of school readiness by 2020, Minnesota must implement three critical accountability initiatives:
A statewide report card- An annual report on progress at all levels of the state's ECCE system, identified as a "statewide report card," should be implemented to determine needs and gaps in Minnesota's early childhood education system for families, providers and policy makers.
Screening and assessment of all children- All of Minnesota's children must be screened and assessed for school readiness starting at age 3, with an initial milestone of screening of 50% of children by the year 2015.
Consistent rating system- A Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) should be established to tell leaders whether providers are meeting proper standards that are aligned with getting the results Minnesota needs for children's progress and parent satisfaction.
