Wisconsin Gets Federal "Race To Top" Money For Early Childhood

Wisconsin will receive nearly $23 million dollars for early childhood learning from the federal government.

The White House announced Thursday that Wisconsin is one of five states to receive Race to the Top grant funding. The four year grant will provide money to improve Youngstar, which is the state’s childcare provider rating system.

It will also help build an early childhood data tracking system that will link programs such as 4 year old kindergarten, Headstart, and Youngstar across three state agencies.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers says it will help agencies work together to better track a child’s progress, “It’s a long term process but we need to start to develop our data systems from birth through kindergarten. Right now they don’t really exist in any meaningful way so I think that will help all the systems so that we know about the kids that our entering our system.”

The Department of Children and Families will spearhead the grant and improvements to the Youngstar system. Gov. Scott Walker said the funding is important to help identify children who are struggling and make sure they get the help they need as early as possible.