Pritzker signs law creating Illinois Dept. of Early Childhood

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday signed a law creating a separate Department of Early Childhood that will make it “simpler, better and fairer” for families seeking assistance and care for the state’s youngest residents.

The agency’s creation comes after five years of study that says Illinois families face a Byzantine bulwark in trying to obtain services often buried inside separate agencies: the State Board of Education and the departments of Human Services and Healthcare and Family Services.

Illinois becomes the fourth state in the nation to devote an executive branch agency to early development, according to the Education Commission of the States. Georgia and Maryland swept various offices serving children and families into early childhood departments as early as 2004. Alabama underwent a similar shakeup in 2015.

Other states, such as Colorado, Maryland and Pennsylvania exercise close coordination among related childhood services by putting them in a single division within an executive department or creating joint oversight of department programs.

With $13 million in seed money, Ann Whalen, formerly of the education advocacy group Advance Illinois, has served as the new agency’s transition director since last fall.

Pritzker has prioritized early childhood education since taking office and noted that the state is about to embark on its second full year of the expanded Smart Start pre-school program.

While it appears to be an expansion of government, Pritzker downplayed uproar over a sprawling bureaucracy. The space and personnel necessary for the consolidation of programs should be minimal, although he wouldn’t put a price on minting a new operation.



(Photo: Terrance Antonio James/Chicago Tribune via AP)