The Early Learning Challenge Fund

About ELCF
The Early Learning Challenge Fund is an initiative that is proposed as part of The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 (H.R. 3221).  This bill, introduced on July 15, 2009 by Representative George Miller (D-CA), the Chairman of the House, Education and Labor Committee, passed in the US House of Representatives on September 17, 2009.  The bill has been forwarded to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

The Early Learning Challenge Fund, if passed into law, would provide 1 billion dollars over 8 years to help grow comprehensive, standards- based systems of high quality early learning programs.  The bill promotes the establishment of higher standards for early learning programs that support the healthy development of children while preparing them for success in school [1].

The Early Learning Challenge Fund provides monetary support in the form of two grants.  Quality Pathways Grants would be available to states that have already made established progress towards improving the quality of early learning programs.  Development Grants would be used to support planning efforts for early learning systems.  The Department of Education and the Health and Human Services would administer the grants. 

Once states are awarded the funding, 65 percent of the grant must be used to implement activities that increase the quality of early childhood learning programs available to disadvantaged children.  The remaining funds may be used to better the state’s data system, enhance the state’s oversight system of early learning programs, and/or to develop an improved measure of school readiness of children that attend early learning programs. This information is used to inform the quality improvement process [2].

In the News
Unfortunately, the ELCF was not included student loan reform bill that pass the Congress through the budget reconciliation process. With health care reform moving through reconciliation and new Congressional Budget Office estimates, the student loan legislation faced new pressures. Senate parliamentary rules made it more difficult to include a new grant program in the bill.