May 9th Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington VA Amanda Szekely, NGA Center Beyond Advisory Councils: Redesigning State Government to Facilitate B-3 rd Grade Reforms

Redesigning state governance to facilitate B-3 rd reforms Governance reform can promote: Coordinated decision-making and aligned learning and program quality expectations across B-3 rd grade continuum; Efficiency and better targeted resources to meet needs; and Streamlined implementation of cross-program infrastructure (ex. data systems) 2

Governance Redesign: Many Approaches Focus on B-5 Coordination, then K-12 Linkage –Separate ECE agency (MA, GA, WA) –Consolidated ECE office within existing agency or across agencies (ex. PA, MD, MI) –Cross-agency “virtual” governance body or ECE leadership in governor’s office (ex. MN, CT, OR) Focus on P-3 Coordination –P-3 office in state education agency (ex. NJ, NC) 3

Considerations Crafting a governance strategy that achieves state goals Role of new governance structure- will it have authority over policy, program administration, and/or budgets? Governor support and legislative champions Building on strengths of existing early childhood policy leadership in the state Redefining role of the ECAC 4