On July 1, 2011 the U.S. Department of Education (ED) published the proposed competition criteria for the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (ELC). The ELC is funded with $500 million of the $700 million Congress allocated for the Race to the Top program in the FY 2011 budget passed in April.  The ELC will be jointly managed by ED and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and, according to ED’s Web site www.ed.gov, individual state awards will range from $50 million to $100 million depending of the state’s population.  Since all awards must be granted by the December 31, 2011 statutory deadline, ED is bypassing the formal rulemaking process, but is seeking public comments on its draft executive summary of the proposed requirements, priorities, selection criteria and definitions for the competition.  Public comments may be submitted through July 11, 2011.

The executive summary lists the priorities for ELC: Two absolute priorities that a state must address in its application in order to receive an award; one competitive preference priority for which an applicant may earn extra points; and two invitational priorities in areas of particular interest to ED and DHHS which an applicant may choose to address, but for which the applicant will not receive extra points nor preference over other applicants.  The ELC application reviewers will determine if priorities are met after evaluating the state’s responses to the five selection criteria listed in the executive summary. The selection criteria focus on: successful state systems; promoting early learning and development outcomes for children; high-quality, accountable programs; and a great early childhood education workforce.

The full ELC executive summary is available at http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/rtt-elc-draft-execsumm-070111.pdf.