Alliance convenings, connections, and community fueled Tennessee advocates’ new, highly tailored early childhood data portal.
When early childhood advocates at Tennesseans for Quality Early Education (TQEE) started thinking about ways to leverage data in a tailored and strategic way, staff remembered hearing about a similar project in another state. They had recently heard through the Alliance for Early Success network that advocates in North Carolina had developed a birth-to-8 data dashboard based on domains of success measures.
“As our team studied North Carolina’s Pathway to Grade Level Reading, we really liked the framework, and especially that it was so well-grounded in research and evidence. We felt we could build on and adapt it for Tennessee,” says Blair Taylor, TQEE’s President & CEO. TQEE was in the process of developing the Bright Start Tennessee Network, a network of regional partnerships implementing local early care and education plans and advocating for a state birth-though-third grade policy agenda. “With the launch of Bright Start we wanted to refresh our policy and practice framework and anchor it in data.”
TQEE modified North Carolina’s 15 measures of success, organized into three domains, and adapted the framework for Tennessee.
Like North Carolina, TQEE’s three domains — high-quality birth-through-age-eight learning environments, health, mental health, and development on track from birth, and supported and supportive families and communities –contain 15 measures of success, including regular school attendance, healthy birth weights, and how often parents read with their children.
“These 15 indicators together serve as a window into the health, wellness and education of every child,” said Jonathan Scoonover, TQEE’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Practice, who oversaw the development of the dashboard. “Oral health, for example, can serve as a proxy for figuring out if a child has a parent or guardian in their life who is saying you have to brush your teeth, someone who is making that daily investment.”
Once TQEE identified its model, it needed help to adapt the measures to Tennessee’s context and establish data collection methods. And being part of the Alliance network paid off again. National nonprofit ChildTrends is in the Alliance network of responsive support providers who can work with states at the Alliance’s expense. “Carlise King and her team with Child Trends’ Early Childhood Data Collaborative could not have been more helpful. They guided us every step of the way, said Scoonover.”
The project took time. Some data had to be gathered from different sources. Other data didn’t exist at all. To fill gaps, TQEE collected its own data, working with Child Trends to design a parent survey and hiring a firm to conduct the survey.
The Bright Start TN data dashboard digital edition finally launched in 2023 and was refreshed with improved data visualization in late 2024.
The dashboard is interactive and features statewide data, with a special focus on the eight Bright Start regions. With a few clicks, data can be organized by demographic and academic subgroups as well as by region and school district. Now that each of the Bright Start regions have access to the regularly updated dashboard, they’re better equipped to measure progress. And more important, the Bright Start teams have used the 15 measures of success to organize their local ECE action plans, choosing strategies from TQEE’s Strategies Clearinghouse — a database of evidence-informed practices that are matched to the dashboard’s 15 measures.
With all the pieces in place, the Bright Start teams can identify ways for their communities to help young children thrive and show state lawmakers how they can play a role.
“One strategy from the Clearinghouse that a number of our regions have chosen is community schools that provide wraparound support services to young children and their families. The advocacy magic happens when, for example, those local Bright Start teams use the data dashboard to help their lawmakers understand the need for community schools, use the evidence-base for community schools outlined in our strategies clearinghouse to say why it’s a good solution, and then join voices through TQEE with other communities across the state advocating for greater state investments in community schools,” Taylor said.
The dashboard is a strong example of what can happen when advocates support and empower communities with data, resources, and coalition convening.
And it’s also a clear example of the Alliance Effect in action. “Being part of the Alliance network no doubt made the dashboard possible,” Taylor says. “Beyond the general operating funding, the customized and tailored technical assistance from national experts like ChildTrends is part of what makes the Alliance such an incredible partner.”
