ABOUT EDUCARE
Founded by the Ounce of Prevention Fund in Chicago in 2000, Educare Centers are committed to helping young children grow up safe, healthy and eager to learn. Through a consortium of partners, Educare supporters create, provide and promote the highest quality outcome-based learning environments for families and their children (ages prenatal to five years) who are at-risk for school failure. Educare principles and practices are based on continual research and implementation within the field of early childhood education. The success of the children who enter this program will demonstrate the societal and economic value of investing in the earliest years in order to prevent the need for costly interventions later.

Nationwide centers include:

• Chicago – opened 2000
• Omaha (North), Neb. – opened 2003
• Milwaukee – opened 2005
• Tulsa – opened 2006
• Denver – opened 2007
• Oklahoma City – opened 2009
• Omaha (South), Neb. – groundbreaking 2008
• Miami – opened 2008
  

Educare centers in the pipeline:

• Arizona
• Omaha South
• Tulsa North
• Central Maine - lead funder is Doris Buffett and Bill & Joan Alfond
• West DuPage, IL
• Washington D.C. - W.K. Kellogg Foundation lead funder
• Portland
• Miami
• Seattle
• Yakima, Wash.

GOALS
Nationally, Educare supporters hope to create 12 to 15 Educare Centers in a network reaching across 10 to 12 states that will provide a robust national research sample of nearly 2,000 children and families (A national research project is being conducted by the Frank Porter Graham Institute at the University of North Carolina. Early indications are positive but the sample sizes are still quite small.)

By the time the network is fully built, the private sector will have invested more than $100 million in capital construction, sending a strong statement about leveling the playing field for very young children growing up in low-income families.

Each Educare Center also serves as a platform for policy change.

• In Illinois, Educare of Chicago helped lead to significant expansions in early education funding from birth through age five.
• In Nebraska, Educare of Omaha inspired the creation of a new $60 million Nebraska Endowment, a public-private partnership supporting the early care and education of very young children.
• In Oklahoma, Educare efforts resulted in the creation of the $25 million state pilot, a public-private partnership supporting high-quality educational services for children from birth through age three.

LEAD EDUCARE FUNDERS
Lead Educare Funders coordinate all fundraising efforts for Educare capital campaigns. The anchor funder takes a leading role in organizing the Educare governance committee, which incorporates representatives from the public and private sectors (private sector, local public schools, Head Start/Early Head Start, etc.) to oversee the actual governance of Educare.

• Irving Harris Foundation in Chicago
• Buffett Early Childhood Fund in Omaha and Milwaukee
• George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa
• Chambers Family Fund in Denver
• Inasmuch Foundation in Oklahoma City
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle and Yakima
• United Way of Miami-Dade in Miami

National Research

• National Educare Centers
• The Abecedarian Project
• Perry Preschool Project
• Cost-benefit analysis of Chicago Parent-Child Centers
• James Heckman, Nobel Laureate Economist, on economic return of investing in early childhood
• Ounce Of Prevention
• The First Five Years Fund (cgrumman@ffyf.org)
• Heller School for Social Policy and Management (Brandeis University)
• National Scientific Council on the Developing Child
• The Birth to Five Policy Alliance
• The Bounce Learning Network Implementation Study