It's clear that pervasive systems, practices, and perceptions create an unfair playing field in our country, and that children of color and their families face unequal obstacles that lead to unequal outcomes.
So we at the Alliance for Early Success believe the only way we’ll achieve our vision is through policy changes that end the practices that cause 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 seeing and addressing racial inequity 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 unfairness 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. In 2022, we updated the Alliance Theory of Change to explicitly name structural racism and to center antiracism in our work.
The Alliance’s racial equity work includes:
Operationalizing Equity, a program for our grantees launched in 2021 that funds and supports their work to be more equitable in their advocacy and operations.
An Emerging Early Childhood Policy Professionals of Color peer network with the objective of offering a meaningful and supportive network for young early childhood advocates of color and to build a pipeline of diverse leaders.
Hosting national voices on equity in policy advocacy as part of our National Issues > State Action webinar series.
Advancing the disaggregation of racial data in the analysis of early childhood and family support policy.
Naming unfair systems and equitable practices explicitly in our Theory of Change.
Establishing new grant projects and programs to support states in their efforts to build coalitions and hear voices with lived experience.
Several communities of practice that equip participants to strengthen their organization’s ability to center proximate voices and work with their communities in more trauma-informed, non-extractive ways.
Continuing our ongoing all-staff racial equity self-development to ensure we all—as individuals and professionals—continually strengthen our ability to see and address the ways families from marginalized racial groups continue to experience unfair obstacles.
More news on advancing equity from the Alliance and our network:
As part of our celebration of this year’s Black Maternal Health Week (April 11-17), the Alliance is spotlighting I Be Black Girl, a maternal health organization that focuses on policy and power building, Black-led investments, birth justice, and economic justice.
In honor of Black Maternal Health Week 2025 (#BMHW25), the Alliance for Early Success and the Michigan Council for Maternal and Child Health (MCMCH) are co-hosting a webinar on engaging community voice and partnerships to enhance maternal health. Learn about community-informed research and policymaking to support Black maternal health in Michigan.
Early childhood and reproductive justice advocates share a vision that parents nurture their children in safe and healthy environments. Both movements value family decision-making, community knowledge and leadership, and policy change. Together, early childhood and reproductive justice advocates can create a world in which maternal and child health are optimized and families with young children live in thriving communities. This webinar explores the history and origins of the reproductive justice movement, reviews of the structural and systemic policy impacts on Prenatal-to-3, and names the mutual values and priorities shared with early childhood advocates.
Each year, the Alliance for Early Success surveys early childhood policy advocates representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia to create its annual 50-State Early Childhood Policy Progress and Landscape Report. The 2024 report, released in January, shows that support for state early childhood policies and funding continued to be strong, with policymakers from every region and political landscape acting to improve their early childhood policies.
It is no secret that early childhood educators face challenges in Wisconsin and beyond, and yet plans to make the system more equitable are often missing the voices of these practitioners themselves. In Wisconsin, a new study that centers the voices of Wisconsin early educators from traditionally marginalized groups is already having an impact on policy in the state.
The Alliance Hosts 200 grantees for three days of reflection, discussion, and connecting insights to their work as individuals, leaders, and early childhood
advocates.
JUNETEENTH 2024 REFLECTION The Alliance for Early Success is joining our neighbors in a celebration of freedom and a renewed commitment to dismantling the pervasive legacy of slavery.
CELEBRATING BLACK MATERNAL HEALTH WEEK 2024 As we observe Black Maternal Health Week 2024, Alliance for Early Success Human Resources consultant Annette Richards shares her experience becoming grandmother twice in the calming presence of doulas.
In our new report, Child Care Policy Roadmap 2023, we highlight policies enacted in states – red, blue, and purple – that serve as building blocks for a transformative child care system. It builds on a policy roadmap released several years ago that laid out the major areas of work that all states need to take on to transform our child care system. It turns out that the ideas included in that report were not pipe dreams, and many states have put them into action.
Sign up for state early childhood policy news, advocacy resources, and event invitations.
© 2025 Alliance for Early Success
The Alliance for Early Success does not endorse or advocate for specific legislation or candidates.
