Over the past four centuries, racist policies in our country have been central to the creation of pervasive systems, practices, and perceptions that rob and constrain children of color from birth—generation after generation.
So we at the Alliance for Early Success believe the only way we’ll achieve our vision is through policy changes that dismantle the structural racism that causes disparity from the beginning. As we work toward our mission of creating an early childhood policy advocacy community that secures the policies and investments essential for every young child to thrive, we know we must center racial equity.
Allies for Antiracism is our commitment to centering racial equity in our strategic planning and in the community building that is central to our work.
Our Allies for Antiracism initiative has three pillars:
We will continually name the racism that permeates all aspects of the opportunities to succeed for many of our nation’s children and families.
We will continually learn and self-assess as professionals and as an organization.
We will continually collaborate with state allies and the national organizations that support their work to hear where they are and what they need, and will follow through with technical efforts to help them pursue policies that dismantle racism and undo racial disparities.
The Alliance began this journey in 2015 when we convened a racial equity advisory group to guide the revision of our policy framework, and we are continuing the learning, conversation, and practice that will help us — and the early childhood allies in our national community — get increasingly effective in centering racial equity.
Additional components of the work currently include:
This May, which is nationally recognized as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we lift up the story of two parents whose 19th-century advocacy for their own children opened the schoolhouse doors for countless more.
ARAB AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH SPOTLIGHT: As the nation kicks off Arab American Heritage Month, we’re spotlighting one of the country’s fiercest champions for young children, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who uncovered the Flint Water Crisis and has not stopped advocating for the city’s children.
In 1929 ,Dorothy Howard founded the Garden of Children, the first nursery school in the District of Columbia, and one of the earliest in the country, for Black children.For black history month, early education takes the spotlight.
WEBINAR The Alliance is joined by Jonathan Metzl, author of the best-selling Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. He has done extensive research on voters who oppose health policies that would benefit them, and his presentation to early childhood advocates encourages them to understand “zero-sum” solution perceptions.
Elevating parent voices is a powerful form of advocacy. As allies have knowledge of the policy process, parents have lived experiences and insight on what is wrong and can be improved. Allies gathered to learn from peers how states are working to include parents in their policy development and advocacy strategy.
The Alliance for Early Success has launched a new opportunity for state advocacy organizations: a learning and leadership program called Operationalizing Equity. The offering is a six-month collective experience for Alliance state grantees that will help them operationalize strategies to center racial justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in their work.
Policy and data leaders from the diversitydatakids.org project show us how to use the down-to-the-neighborhood data in their new Child Opportunity Index 2.0 — and dive into strategies for making this kind of data part of effective advocacy and mobilization for equity.
Early childhood advocates from across the country — representing a diversity of states — have come together to recommend nine consensus principles for investing in early care and education. These principles were developed to guide leaders at every level as they determine whether and how to invest new funding in the child care system.
As the Alliance for Early Success joins others in marking the day when justice was deferred no longer, the organization is reaffirming its commitment to continuing to name the racism that is entrenched in our country’s systems – both in our policies and in the comfortable habits that perpetuate inequity.
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© 2022 Alliance for Early Success
