First Five Nebraska is an initiative of Early Futures Partnership
First Five Nebraska is an initiative of Early Futures Partnership
Broad consensus exists that teacher quality matters—teacher quality makes a difference in our K-12 system and it makes a difference in our colleges and universities. But nowhere does teacher quality have a greater impact than with our youngest children.
Nebraska faces a shortage of high-quality early childhood educators, which impacts the ability of local communities to respond to the needs of young families. LB773 will create a representative panel that will assess the current early childhood workforce and make recommendations for growing it.
The 104th Nebraska Legislature, Second Session, convened at 10 a.m. Wednesday. In his opening address to senators, Speaker Galen Hadley said the Legislature will address every priority bill this session.
The U.S. Senate has passed the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), which will help strengthen Nebraska’s efforts by allowing states the discretion to determine how to improve and strengthen high-quality early childhood care and education.
Nebraska Step Up to Quality celebrated its first birthday July 1 and celebrated a year of working to improve early care and education quality, and increase positive outcomes for young children to close the achievement gap.
Appropriations Committee Chair Mello sees tremendous opportunity for policymakers to improve the lives of Nebraska's children and families while continuing to build on our state’s overall economic momentum.
Balancing a wide variety of public interests and with great bipartisan support, the Nebraska Legislature again recognized the critical importance of children’s early years prior to adjourning the 2015 legislative session on May 29. Of preeminent importance to First Five Nebraska is public policy that recognizes the development of the brain in the early years literally shapes the learning capacity for the rest of a child’s life. Here's a summary of our highest priority bills from the 2015 legislative session.
With true bipartisanship, Nebraska senators passed and Governor Ricketts signed legislation to allow partnership between child care providers and schools to help young children receive the kinds of early experiences known to foster cognitive and character skills that lead to success in school and life.
The partnership formed between Sixpence Early Learning Fund and Step Up to Quality in LB547 will mean that more kids at risk will benefit from early care and education programs that meet the rigorous, high-quality standards known to narrow the achievement gap.
Child care and education fall under the purview of two different systems in Nebraska, and each approaches early childhood from a unique standpoint. For the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees child care, the issue revolves around ensuring that children’s fundamental requirements for health and safety are met while in care. Nebraska’s education system, on the other hand, focuses on whether children begin kindergarten ready to learn and prepared to advance academically. The science of early childhood development tells us that these two aspects of child development shouldn’t be addressed as separate considerations. Early child care environments are, or ought to be, learning environments—just as the health and safety of young children are necessary for quality learning to occur.
LB489 allows child care providers to partner with school districts to receive Sixpence Early Learning Fund grants, making them critical partners in local efforts to close the achievement gap for Nebraska's youngest, most at-risk children.