About CECIDS

In early childhood education, we are far behind other educational disciplines in having comprehensive data to catalyze collective action and make smarter, more equitable policy decisions. That lack of data makes it more challenging to identify where inequities exist and how best to address them. And yet tens of millions of dollars each year are allocated based on fragments of disconnected data – corresponding to a funding source rather than children’s experiences and outcomes. Millions in private funding are left on the table because we’re hard-pressed to describe, using system-wide data, which solutions best address root problems. Lawmakers struggle to find entry points at anything beyond programmatic levels. Providers operate in fragmented fiefdoms because they have no way of understanding how they’re performing in relation to others serving similar populations. Communities don’t know how to act collectively because they lack neighborhood-level data that translates an incoherent, complex system into understandable and solvable problems. Most importantly, 72% of children in Chicago do not meet the criteria for school readiness when they arrive in Kindergarten.