This summer, Illinois will launch a state-level department of early childhood, bringing under one roof a host of programs for children, families and educators that have long been dispersed across different state agencies.
In doing so, it will become the latest in a wave of states that have established standalone departments for early care and education in recent years, joining the ranks of Colorado, New Mexico and others.
The shift toward unified governance structures comes at a time when the sector is getting more attention and, in some states, more investment. That, plus an effort to improve families’ experiences in accessing public programs for them and their young children, seems to be driving this trend.
Whether a state’s governance structure can make a meaningful difference in how its system of early childhood education functions, though, is a question worth asking — and it’s one many early childhood policy leaders are trying to answer.
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Every state has a unique organizational framework, but historically, programs and services for young children and their families have been housed across several common agencies, such as an education department, a department of health, and a department of welfare and social services.
That was the case in Colorado before it launched its Department of Early Childhood in 2022, explained executive director Lisa Roy, and it made for a disjointed experience.
State Governance Chart: Colorado (Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center)
“Having things scattered across different agencies just makes things confusing for families,” Roy said.
And that is the case in Illinois now, said Teresa Ramos, secretary of the new department that is slated to launch on July 1.
“What excites me, over time, is building a system that can more seamlessly serve parents and providers,” Ramos said. She wants to lift “some of that burden” off of families and educators who have to keep track of “which 12 people to call” and ultimately simplify their experience of engaging with government services.
State Governance Chart: Illinois (Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center)
The other consequence of programs being spread across different departments is that it creates a leadership vacuum in early care and education, said Elliot Regenstein, a lawyer who has studied early childhood governance and recently wrote a book on the topic.
“It’s a complicated ecosystem,” Regenstein said. “When oversight of that ecosystem is splintered across multiple agencies, with none as their primary expertise, it shows.”
Cynthia Osborne, executive director of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt University, which charts each state’s early childhood governance structure, used the pandemic as an example. During that time, a state education secretary’s focus was likely on reopening K-12 schools, even though their department also oversaw Head Start and pre-K programs, while the health secretary was probably thinking primarily about hospitals and health care, not child care licensing and quality.
“What you had in early childhood was a system entirely run by middle managers,” Regenstein said. “Halfway up the org chart, they may or may not be empowered to interact with the legislature. Their orientation was to run a grant program, rather than think systemically about how those pieces fit together.”
He added: “That’s not a knock on those people. But when it was literally nobody’s job to think about the system as a whole, it just made everybody’s job harder.”
It’s a complicated ecosystem. When oversight of that ecosystem is splintered across multiple agencies, with none as their primary expertise, it shows.
Elliot Regenstein
The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center has identified 13 states that have established standalone departments or offices of early care and education. In those 13 states, there is a senior leader whose entire job is to think about, organize and prioritize issues affecting early childhood. That change is both symbolic and actual — or it can be, when managed thoughtfully.
National Landscape: Early Childhood Governance (Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center)
Another dozen or so states — while not going as far as creating a new department — have made meaningful changes around early childhood governance and leadership, Regenstein added.
“The question I’d ask,” he said, “is has a state taken action to elevate leadership in early childhood and done something to unify oversight? Even if they haven’t gotten all the way there, I want to give credit for progress.”
Of course, the formation of a new government agency, and the appointment of a senior official to lead it, is not in itself a victory. Only once those pieces are in place does the hard work begin.
“Early childhood programs are historically under-resourced. Putting them all together doesn’t give you some kind of economy of scale — ‘oh, good, we’re all here and we’re all under-resourced,” said Elizabeth Groginsky, secretary of New Mexico’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department, acknowledging the challenge these departments face.
She added: “We’ve focused on building a system of programs and services that are well connected and aligned. We’ve done a really good job. We still have much work to do.”
State Governance Chart: New Mexico (Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center)
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One thing all of these states seem to have in common is a governor who is willing to prioritize young children and families and make early childhood education a signature part of their platform.
Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois, Jared Polis of Colorado and Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico all ran campaigns that emphasized early childhood education and later stewarded the creation of a standalone department. That is no coincidence, Osborne of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center said.
For this organizing structure to be successful, she said, “it has to come from the governor.”
Helene Stebbins, executive director of the Alliance for Early Success, made a similar point. “What matters more than any org chart or structure is leadership. Full stop,” said Stebbins. “When you have a strong governor, it is like wind in the sails.”
What matters more than any org chart or structure is leadership. Full stop. When you have a strong governor, it is like wind in the sails.
Helene Stebbins, Alliance for Early Success
That significance doesn’t evaporate once the department has launched. These governors appoint cabinet-level officials, such as Roy in Colorado and Groginsky in New Mexico, to lead the new agency and work alongside them as they make decisions that are relevant to early care and education providers, children and families.
In practice, these states end up with a dedicated early childhood advocate attending cabinet meetings with the governor and other department heads.
“It’s not just symbolic. It’s really important,” said Osborne. “The secretary of early childhood is sitting side-by-side with the secretaries of … education and health. They can make decisions at that level, think about how to work together and leverage resources, in real-time.”
That’s an enormous improvement over the “middle manager” dynamic that Regenstein described.
“It is much more likely that you’re going to be able to get the resources that you need,” Osborne added.
In Colorado, that has had a real impact, Polis shared.
“It certainly elevated the discussion about early childhood education in our state,” Polis said. “Dr. Roy attends every cabinet meeting. We talk about early childhood education every week. Before, no one owned it in the state.”
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That access has given Roy opportunities to communicate directly with the governor about nuances in the field and to get a broader perspective of his competing priorities, she said.
“The governor is a partner with me in thinking through these things,” Roy said, adding that “having that access and having his ear has been so important.”
That kind of centralized leadership and governor’s support have been essential in enabling New Mexico to make groundbreaking progress on early care and education in the last several years, according to Groginsky.
“There’s no way this kind of rapid, system-building growth could’ve happened with three different agencies, middle-level managers and staff working cross-departmental,” she said, referring to the recent transformation of early childhood education in the state, including the launch of the first statewide universal free child care initiative in the U.S.
It is much more efficient and effective, she added, to channel all that time, energy and resources “in one direction, under one leader.”
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This recent burst of activity in the development of early childhood education departments has precedent. In the early 2000s, a trio of states — Georgia, Massachusetts and Washington — each created a new agency to focus on early childhood.
Georgia’s Department of Early Care and Learning, launched in 2004, is considered to have been the first state-level early childhood education department, said Amy M. Jacobs, the agency’s commissioner since 2014. She said her office has received numerous requests and questions from leaders in other states who are now trying to stand up a similar governance structure (which she describes as a “one-stop shop” for families).
To those leaders, she typically tries to impart a few key lessons.
One, she said, is to take their time. It’s OK to go slowly, especially if it means getting it right. Georgia’s department underwent many iterations before the final pieces were in place in 2017 — a full 13 years after it launched.
Another, Jacobs said, is to create a system that makes sense in the context of their state. “There’s no ‘right’ way to create your agency. There are no ‘right’ set of programs,” she explained. “Every state is going to have their own pathway.”
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In practice, that means that New Mexico’s department may have more programs and services under its umbrella than Colorado’s, and that shouldn’t be a critique of either agency.
Finally, Jacobs said, it’s important to understand that anyone involved in this work may need patience if they want to see ideas about the field of early care and education meaningfully change.
“Culture change will take longer than you ever think it will,” Jacobs said, noting that after more than two decades, she believes that the perception of early childhood educators as “babysitters” has changed and that the field is now highly valued by Georgia state leaders and policymakers. “It’s been a long process. … It just takes a lot of time to change that mindset.”
The formation of these departments is in itself momentous, many policy experts said, because it signals that early childhood is an issue that’s so important it deserves — literally — a seat at the governor’s table. But their existence does not guarantee their long-term success.
Many of these agencies are still very new, having been ushered in by the sitting governor. One of the major tests is whether they can withstand leadership change — a new governor, perhaps from an opposing party, who maybe isn’t as keen on putting early care and education toward the top of their platform, said Regenstein. Some states, like Georgia and Massachusetts, have survived that type of leadership transition.
“We still cannot answer the question to states, ‘Is this something we should do?’” said Osborne. “But we think there are models of these new departments that really can make it so you’re prioritizing early childhood, so you can use funds more efficiently, and decisions can be made that will enhance programs.”
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