1. Smart Start
March 30, 2011

2. Smart Start Overview –
The Problem
Smart Start was created in 1993 as an innovative solution
to a problem: Children were coming to school unprepared
to learn.
It was based on research that experiences early in life can
have a lasting impact on later learning.
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3. Smart Start Overview –
The Problem
Since Smart Start’s creation, North Carolina children have
been faring better.
Then Now
North Carolina ranked 49th in SAT 39th
scores
33% of children attending child care 64%
were in high quality care
NC graduation rate was 65% 74.2%
But there is still a long way to go.
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4. Smart Start Overview –
The Problem
Funding for the past decade: $49 million
*One-time budget reduction of $16M reduced available 08-09 budget to $194M
**One-time budget reduction of $7M reduced available 09-10 budget to $187M
***One-time budget reduction of $6M reduced available 10-11 budget to $182M
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5. Smart Start Overview –
The Problem
# of NC children birth to five
in past decade: to 793,2841 (from 648,796)
% of NC children living in
poverty in past decade: to 26%2 (from 19% in 2000)
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Data Source: Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau.
Data Source: Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Census
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6. Smart Start Overview –
Key Principles
All North Carolina children have
the right to a chance at the
American Dream.
Early childhood investments are
vital to our state’s economic
security and prosperity.
Families are our top priority.
We put families first by giving
them the tools they need to raise
healthy, happy, successful children.
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7. Smart Start Overview –
Key Principles
The long-term consequence of neglecting to invest in
children early is a lifetime of failure and dependency for far
too many.
The earliest months and years of life are a crucial time
when the foundation of children’s character, how they
relate to others and how they learn, is built.
The simple truth is that if we lose them at 3, we lose
them at 13, and we lose them at 30.
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8. Smart Start Overview –
Key Principles
We can’t afford to fail.
Long-term research shows that quality early childhood
education raises graduation rates by up to 44%.1
The most conservative researchers estimate a high school
dropout costs $250,0002 in public assistance programs and
efforts to offset a reduced contribution society.
1
Mission: Readiness, http://www.missionreadiness.org/about_us.html
2
Paying Later: The High Costs of Failing to Invest in Young Children,
http://www.partnershipforsuccess.org/uploads/20110124_02311PAESCrimeBriefweb3.pdf
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9. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
All children benefit from
good early experiences.
Smart Start reaches children
where they are—at home, a
child care program, or a
pediatrician’s office.
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10. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
Smart Start funds evidence-
based programs with proven
results that:
• Improve children’s early care
and education programs so
that they are safe, healthy and
provide opportunities for
children to learn skills they
need for success in school.
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11. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
Smart Start funds evidence-based
programs with proven results
that:
• Ensure that children have access
to preventive health care.
• Provide parents with tools and
education that support them in
raising happy, healthy successful
children.
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12. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
Smart Start works in all 100 North Carolina counties through
The North Carolina Partnership for Children, Inc. (NCPC),
and 77 local, private nonprofit agencies (Local Partnerships).
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13. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
Smart Start is a public/private partnership at the state
and local level. As such it brings people and dollars to
the table that would not come otherwise.
NCPC and Smart Start local partnerships raise millions of
dollars of private funding, something government agencies
do not do.
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14. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
In the 2009-10 Fiscal Year alone, NCPC and Local
Partnerships raised $17.7 million in cash.
NCPC secures private funding for services in local
communities such as a recent $3 million, three-year
grant from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North
Carolina Foundation to combat early childhood obesity
using evidence-based strategies implemented through
Local Partnerships.
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15. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
The power of Smart
Start is that it
delivers outcomes
by giving
communities local
control to
determine the best
approach to
achieving them.
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16. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
NCPC establishes measurable,
statewide goals for increasing
the health, well-being and
development of North
Carolina’s children birth to
five. Local Partnerships then
take responsibility for making
decisions about how best to
achieve those goals based on
the needs and resources in
their local communities.
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17. Smart Start Overview –
The Solution
NCPC ensures that Smart Start fully meets all legislatively
mandated requirements and operates to the highest
standards of effectiveness, efficiency, accountability, and
integrity.
NCPC is dedicated to inspiring excellence and innovation in
Smart Start through leadership in best practices and
evidence-based programming. North Carolina is the
only state to institute population outcomes for
young children in every county.
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18. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Independent Evaluations
Since 1996 there have been
37 independently conducted
evaluations all with positive
results.
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19. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
More children are in stable, high-quality care that
protects children’s health and safety and promotes children’s
development through: small group sizes; stable, nurturing
caregivers with training and education in child development;
and stimulating and age-appropriate activities and daily
routines.
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20. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
• 63% of all children in early care and education attended
high-quality (4- and 5-star licensed) programs in 2009/10
as compared to 33% in 2001.
• 74% of children whose families received child care
subsidy attended high-quality (4- and 5-star licensed)
programs in 2009/10 as compared to 30% in 2001.
• Since 2006 the percent of child care administrators with a
4-year college degree in early childhood education or a
related field has increased from slightly more than one in
four (28%) to nearly one in two ( 46%).
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21. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
More children are receiving developmental
screenings:
• In 2009, 98% of children received recommended
screenings after Smart Start launched the Assuring
Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) program
(compared to 81% before ABCD) in participating counties.
• Since 2001, the percent of children under the age of three
who are identified with special needs and receive early
intervention services has increased from 3% to 4.8%.
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22. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
More families have the tools they need to raise
healthy, successful children:
• Parents who described their children as having above
normal challenging behaviors decreased from 41% to
15% after participation in the Incredible Years parent
education program in 2009.
• 80% of parents participating in Smart Start literacy
programs increased the time they spend on literacy
activities with their children in 2009.
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23. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Independent Evaluations
Research released this month by Duke University found that
investments in Smart Start generate broad education
benefits.
Tim Bartik, author of Investing in Kids: Early Childhood
Programs and Local Economic Development, says the
study demonstrates significant economic impact for North
Carolina. He calculates the benefits to state program costs
for Smart Start and More at Four to be 8.79.
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24. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Independent Evaluations
“These findings provide the most
rigorous evidence yet that
investments in these early childhood
initiatives generate substantial
benefits for all the children in the
counties that receive these funds,
even children who were never
enrolled in the early childhood
programs.”
Helen Ladd, the Edgar T. Thompson Distinguished
Professor of Public Policy and a professor of
economics at Duke
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25. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Key findings include:
• Third-graders have higher standardized reading and
math scores and lower special education
placement rates in those counties that had received
relatively more funding for Smart Start and More at
Four when these children were younger.
• The favorable effects for each program are independent
of each other and complement each other, so that the
best outcomes hold for children exposed to more of each
program.
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26. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Smart Start is a national model.
North Carolina was the first state to create an early
childhood system. Every state in the nation has contacted
NCPC for early childhood assistance.
The W. K. Kellogg Foundation provided funding for NCPC to
help 11 states establish their early childhood initiatives.
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27. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Fiscal Integrity
In the past ten years, NCPC and
Smart Start local partnerships have
been audited more than 450
times by State auditors and/or
independent auditors hired by the
State.
NCPC has had no audit findings for the past eight years.
In the past two years, all partnerships were audited, and
had no findings.
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28. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Fiscal Integrity
NCPC conducts rigorous
annual monitoring of Local
Partnerships; delivers training
and technical assistance; and
holds Local Partnerships
accountable for meeting
performance standards in
governance, fiscal, and
programmatic operations.
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29. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Fiscal Integrity
NCPC provides cost effective
tools and systems for Local
Partnerships to do business
– supporting centralized
accounting, computer, and
program reporting systems to
ensure reliability, accuracy,
and economies of scale.
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30. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Fiscal Integrity
NCPC’s administrative overhead is just 3% of the
appropriated State funds.
The other 97% is allocated to the 77 local
partnerships that provide Smart Start services in all 100
counties in North Carolina.
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31. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Immediate Benefits
Each year, early learning programs allow 380,000 North
Carolinian parents to work.
59% of all NC children under six live in families where all
parents work.
In total, these families earn almost $12.5 billion
annually.
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32. Smart Start Performance and
Accomplishments
Long-term Benefits
Nobel-prize winning
economist James
Heckman found that
investments in early
childhood development
produce the highest
return on the dollar.
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33. Preserving Our Future
“We must invest now in the next generation to preserve
our nation’s security, freedom, and opportunity. The safety
of our country demands urgent and intelligent action. We
call on all policymakers to ensure America’s national
security by supporting interventions that will prepare young
people for a life of military service and productive
citizenship; this includes fully funding early childhood
education programs, improving graduation rates,
supporting families in ways that improve parenting skills
and reduce child abuse, improving child health, mental
health and nutrition services, and helping troubled kids get
back on track.”
Mission Readiness: Military Leaders for Kids
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