National Governors Association’s Task Force on School Readiness Releases Final Report

The National Governors Association (NGA) established a gubernatorial Task Force on School Readiness in 2002 to identify actions that governors and states could take to support families, schools, and communities in their efforts to ensure that all children are ready for school. The Task Force unveiled its final report, Building the Foundation for Bright Futures: Final Report of the NGA Task Force on School Readiness, in January. This report contains a list of policy recommendations for how governors can promote ready states, ready schools, ready communities, ready families, and ready children. The extensive list of recommendations includes: partnering with private and public stakeholders to create school readiness strategic plans, supporting a high-quality early care and education workforce, and providing new funding sources and leveraging existing resources to help build a more comprehensive school readiness system. Many of the report’s recommendations are already in place to varying degrees in different states. The report also includes a Governor's Guide that ties the list of policy recommendations to concrete examples of state initiatives that promote school readiness.