Tools

To transform the workforce, state leaders should play a large role. But sometimes they are stymied by complexities in the way a state is governed or how different policies have been enacted. To be effective, they will need to delve deeply enough to uncover their state’s internal systems, structures, and regulations.  This questionnaire,  designed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and New America, is intended to help—consider it something akin to an MRI machine for scanning a state’s policy and regulatory structures. The answers that come from this questionnaire can help people spot where opportunities, gaps, and blockages exist and where infrastructure is strong and weak, while also helping to establish paths for moving forward. For more information on how this tool was applied in scanning three states (Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin), see Uncovering the Inner Workings of States' Early Childhood Polices: Results from a New Tool for Changemakers Focused on Transforming the Workforce.  Additional information is available from the Power to the Profession initiative.

NAEYC-NewAmerica_state_policy_questionnaire 2017.pdf

In 2015, New America’s Early & Elementary Education Policy team developed a birth-through-third grade state policy framework. It includes state policies in seven areas that are essential for supporting children’s literacy development:

1. Educators: Teachers and Leaders;
2. Standards, Assessment, and Data;
3. Equitable Funding;
4. Pre-K: Access and Quality;
5. Full-Day Kindergarten: Access and Quality;
6. Dual Language Learner Supports; and
7. Third Grade Reading Laws.

Using this framework, New America ranked 50 states and Washington, D.C.  into the categories of Crawling, Toddling, or Walking based on their progress toward achieving 65 policy indicators across these seven individual policy areas and across all of them together. Use the interactive maps, which can be accessed here, to figure out where your state should focus its efforts.