Janice M. Gruendel, PhD; Senior Advisor for Early Childhood, Governor’s Office, State of Connecticut; Remarks at the School Readiness Indicators Forum: Getting to Great; September 21, 2004
On August 17th, 2004 the great State of Connecticut took another giant step forward in making readiness for school an opportunity accessible to all of its children. Our new Governor, M. Jodi Rell, spoke with superintendents, other educational professionals at the state and local level, and to Connecticut’s broadcast media, to announce her commitment in making Connecticut the “best in class” in terms of preschool education.
Her commitment to this goal was evident even before she became our Governor.
For those of us here today who have worked long and hard to improve developmental outcomes for young children in Connecticut, this change in tone and commitment is exciting almost beyond words.
But just as it creates an astounding opportunity, so it places upon us a set of obligations.
First, it requires that we commit to a regular public accountability process of assessing and reporting on outcomes in the context of children’s readiness for school success at entry to kindergarten and beyond. Certainly this will involve child development outcomes, but also family, community and provider outcomes as well.
Second, it requires that we get very good in our ability to show that we have both the capability and the courage to distinguish great programs, settings, supports and policies from those that are mediocre or even damaging to children, families and providers. Certainly, this will involve some very difficult decisions if we find that an unacceptable proportion of existing programs, supports and policies do not advance children’s development and readiness.
Third, it requires that we commit to a process of improvement that is somehow related to specific cohorts of children. All children born this year and each year thereafter might be one cohort of interest. Another might be all children between the ages of birth and four who live in family or community contexts that predict less than optimal health and readiness for the great adventure of schooling. Certainly, this will involve some honest and probably thorny deliberations addressing cost, financing, return on investment, sustainability of effort, and the management of taking excellence to scale.
In the particular context of today’s forum, all of these obligations and the challenges that they bring rest on the need for better and better research, evaluation, assessment, data collection, analysis and utilization.
Across the nation, states have committed to the collaborative work necessary to address these kinds of key data questions. Fortunately, Connecticut is one of these states and your attendance here today speaks legions to your interest in and commitment to this critical work.
As will clearly become evident, we still have much to do to assure a viable base of data on which to build sound public policy, but we have come a long way towards excellence in that arena already.
Were I to add to your reading pleasure with regard to the critical importance of building public policy decisions on a base of methodologically-sound data processes, I would encourage you to look through two relatively recent business publications.
One, called “Who Said Elephants Can’t Dance” by Lou Gerstner, describes the remaking of IBM and the essential role of databased knowledge in that reconstruction. The other called “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, sets out the elements of 15 truly great companies across America. It also ascribes a key role for data as an essential contributor in knowing and achieving business greatness. In some important ways, Connecticut’s early childhood programs constitute the elephant that we need to teach to dance by taking them from “not so good” or even “good” to “absolutely great.”
I would be remiss if reference to these two books left you with the misperception that data is all that we need. It’s not.
Leadership matters. Having a bold public goal matters. Growing change based on your organization’s special skills and expertise matters. Effective teamwork matters. With regard to the opportunity before us -- right here, right now in Connecticut -- we have all of these components at the ready.
The “opportunity cost” of not moving an agenda of early childhood investment forward in an effective and bipartisan way can be calculated in terms of present and future human and economic capacity. The operative words here are “can be calculated.”
Today offers a great next step in that process. On behalf of Governor Rell, thank you for coming and for your commitment to make CT the greatest state for all of our young children.