By Leslie Boney 

GREENSBORO (July 24, 2024) – A surprisingly large experiment is ramping up surprisingly quietly in Guilford County.

If it’s successful, it could change the way we think about public investment in early childhood education, and the implications of that investment for our future workforce and social structure.

Over 12 years from 2017-2029, a group of mostly private donors will contribute more than $150 million to a comprehensive set of early childhood efforts called “Ready for School, Ready for Life.”

The coordinating organization, known simply as “Ready, Ready,” works with partners to hire staff, create databases and strengthen collaboration between public agencies, private nonprofits and parents.

The goal is clear, but deceptively difficult: Ensure that every one of the 6,000 children born in Guilford County each year is fully prepared for kindergarten and reads proficiently by the end of third grade. 

In January, the first group of children between birth and age 3 began to receive the full range of services. But the strategy and planning has been developing since 2007. That’s when a small group of Guilford County foundation leaders began discussing how to meaningfully reduce poverty in the county.

The more they talked and read, the clearer it became: To break the cycle of poverty, you need to start very early – before birth.

Ed Kitchen, a former Greensboro city manager who left to work for the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, and Susan Schwartz, executive director of the Cemala Foundation, recruited other private foundations, nonprofits, public entities and parent groups to join their effort to create an improved system of services for children and families.

THE INITIATIVE moved to a new level in 2017, when The Duke Endowment, North Carolina’s largest private foundation, joined the effort. The Endowment, which has long invested in small early-childhood initiatives in North and South Carolina, had searched for a place to test a long-term, comprehensive, evidence-based approach to improve child care, said Meka Sales, Director of Special Initiatives for the Endowment.

“Investing in just one organization at a time was not going to get to the level of change we were looking for,” she said. “Guilford County had already planted the seeds for system-building work…. That really gave us a chance to learn how to bring something to scale.”

To build the new “system,” The Duke Endowment partnered with Blue Meridian Partners, an organization funded by wealthy donors who want to promote economic and social mobility.

From 2017-2022, the two entities split an investment of $32.5 million in a preparation phase to create the coordinating organization (during this time, the name changed from “Get Ready Guilford” to the current name); help proven organizations in Guilford County build staff; and develop an integrated data system to track family challenges and data.

THE FIRST fully-developed initiative, called “Routes to Ready,” launched in January.

It intends to ensure that children and parents connect to people who can answer questions and connect families to resources, beginning with pregnancy visits and continuing through age 3. 

At every OB-GYN office and pediatrician’s office in Guilford County, for example, specialists from the Children’s Home Society help parents navigate services and organizations available to assist with dozens of issues.

Children’s Home Society “navigators” help parents find answers and resources before birth and continue to age 3 (in later years, this will expand to age 5). Nurses from the Guilford County Health Department and GenerationEd also provide expertise.

Ready, Ready has identified more than 350 other programs that provide help with specific needs young parents might have. A “community portal“ details help available to families in 60 categories, including childbirth classes, reading programs, housing or food aid and mental health.

Transforming a previously uncoordinated group of organizations into a seamless system is critical for parents to get the help they need when they need it, says Brian Maness, President and CEO of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina and a Ready, Ready board member.

But it can also be culture shock. Many of the organizations have different procedures and principles and compete with one another for funds, notes Audrey Loper, who worked on Ready, Ready for six years through the Collaborative for Implementation Practice at UNC-Chapel Hill.

“When you are asking organizations to come together that have been competing for dollars, you need to develop trust. That doesn’t come in two weeks, or even two months,” Loper says.

The fact that key players have now worked together for seven years is in large part a tribute to the “backbone” organization. About 20 staff members of Ready, Ready, which serves as that backbone, help convene, problem-solve, and facilitate.

“Our role is to ensure that all the different organizations that are part of this network sing from the same song sheet and stay committed to bringing all kids in Guilford County to kindergarten readiness,” says Jacqueline McCracken, Chief Impact Officer for Ready, Ready.

“We try to help everyone understand their larger role in helping make the big ideas work, and maybe sometimes to understand what they need to stop doing – that somebody else may be able to do better. That’s not always an easy sell.”

Over the next five years, the initiative will add services, first reaching children up to 5 years old, then expanding up to age 8.

Organizers are committed to careful data collection and embrace Continuous Quality Improvement. 

They recognize it will take time to see outcomes. This year’s newborns won’t enter kindergarten for five years; they won’t take third-grade reading tests for eight years; and it will likely be 2042 before they look for full-time jobs.

THAT TIMEFRAME requires patience and long-term commitment from partners and investors.

The Duke Endowment and Blue Meridian Partners committed a total of $20 million a year through 2029. That gives the program a chance to demonstrate that increased investment in early childhood is a public good, that it works, and that it should be supported by government.

Mindy Oakley, executive director of the Edward M. Armfield, Sr. Foundation and co-chair (with NC A&T State Chancellor Harold Martin) of the Ready, Ready board, notes: “Our hope is that if we can show how these interventions are moving the needle on kindergarten readiness, more funding will follow.

“In an ideal world, we’ll know the specific needs of the people in the county, and we’ll see scores and success increasing every year.”

“It’s a daunting task to look at how you can meaningfully change the environmental conditions a child is growing up in,” says Kitchen. “That’s as big a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) as you are going to get…but imagining the consequences of doing nothing is even worse.”

NEXT: Lessons learned from Ready, Ready – and can employers become more family-friendly?

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Leslie Boney is a writer based in Raleigh. He has served as director of policy research and strategic planning at the NC Department of Commerce, Vice President for International, Community and Economic Engagement at the UNC System, and Vice Provost for Outreach and Engagement at NC State University.