Six Key Takeaways from Our Conversation with Elliot Regenstein
Early childhood intervention, home visiting, child care scholarships, public pre-k, and Head Start are all programs that support young Texans during the critical period of early childhood. Some of these programs can work together to ensure families have the specific supports they need. For example, working parents of a child with a speech delay may benefit from a child care scholarship, which allows their child to attend an enriching, high-quality child care center. That same child may also need therapies and support through Early Childhood Intervention.
However, many of these programs are spread across state agencies, have different and confusing requirements for families, and contain a complex web of regulations for providers to navigate. This can create challenges that limit the effectiveness of these programs.
Governance refers to the structures and decision-making processes that guide choices about funding, accountability, and implementation of programs. Ensuring these structures are streamlined, efficient, and easy for parents and providers to navigate is a critical way for state leaders to ensure these programs can work together to support families. Improving governance is an opportunity to tackle many of the pressing issues in early learning, such as support for young children with disabilities, expansion of pre-k partnerships, and addressing challenges that undermine program quality and access.
In our recent webinar, Elliot Regenstein explained why governance matters and shared key questions Texas leaders should be asking as they review the state’s early childhood governance through the Governor’s Task Force for Early Childhood Education and Care and the upcoming sunset review process for key state agencies.
Here’s a short clip from the discussion. The full video is at the bottom of the page.
Below, we share six key takeaways from the discussion with Elliot to guide Texas’s next steps in strengthening early learning governance.
1. Start by Defining What We Want to Accomplish
Every governance decision comes with benefits and tradeoffs. As Texas begins evaluating its early childhood governance, Elliot warned against looking to other states’ governance choices first. Instead, Texas leaders should focus on identifying the state’s priorities for supporting families of young children. For example, given Texas’s size and regional variation, state leaders may need to develop governance structures that empower regional leaders to support local programs and families. If stakeholders skip this step, they risk putting forth solutions that don’t address the root challenges.
2. Form Follows Function
While there are several reasons why early childhood programs are administered by different agencies, funding often plays a key role. For example, the Texas Workforce Commission is the agency that administers federal Child Care Development Funds (CCDF) for the child care scholarship program. The Texas Education Agency administers the Texas public pre-k program, which is tied to the school finance formula.
Both of these programs have different quality requirements for programs to follow. For child care scholarships, child care centers must meet licensing requirements overseen by the Health and Human Services Commission. They must also participate in Texas Rising Star, which is the state’s quality rating and improvement system for private child care–developed by the Texas Workforce Commission. Public pre-k must meet the high-quality pre-k components developed by the Texas Education Agency. Each quality standard is designed to ensure children are safe and learning, but fragmented oversight means different agencies define and support quality separately, even within the same child care center. In the webinar, Elliot challenged us to consider new governance approaches that could empower a single entity to think about and define quality across these settings.
3. Leadership is Critical
Leadership is essential for strengthening the efficiency and effectiveness of Texas’s early childhood program. By establishing the Governor’s Task Force for the Governance of Early Childhood Education and Care, Texas leaders have acknowledged the need to strengthen how the state supports its youngest learners. The Task Force should also consider the need to ensure senior leaders within our state agencies are empowered to address challenges across the early childhood system. In the webinar, Elliot provided this example:
“I was used to going to states and having conversations with early childhood division managers who would come to some sort of tentative agreement, and then all say, I’ve got to go back to my agency and get clearance for this. And then maybe a few weeks later, you’d actually have something resembling an agreement; more likely, someone would have had to go a different direction, and then you gotta start over again. But in Georgia, there was an agency head, and there was an initiative they were working on, and she called a meeting with three other agency heads. And they sat around the table, and they hashed it all out. So, ultimately, the kind of leadership that you’re looking for in early childhood is that…designed to empower those people to think systemically and to engage in problem solving at that level.”
4. Strong Stakeholder Engagement Shapes Success
Engaging stakeholders early and often builds shared understanding of the challenges and buy-in on the solutions–an approach Elliot highlights as essential for identifying effective governance reforms. House Bill 117, which creates the Governor’s Task Force, names specific stakeholders who will be represented, including pre-k teachers from a public school and a private facility, a representative from the state Head Start Collaboration Office, representatives of the Texas Early Learning Council, and other stakeholders with expertise. In addition, it will be crucial for the Task Force to consider opportunities to engage stakeholders with expertise not represented among the Task Force members. For example, stakeholders with expertise in Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) and Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) can share how different decisions may distinctly affect children with disabilities and their families. The Task Force should also consider ways to hear insights from families directly about their experiences navigating early learning and child care systems across the state. Capturing a range of perspectives will lead to more durable and effective reforms.
5. Measure What Matters
Elliot emphasized that successful governance reform requires clearly defining what success looks like and focusing on measurable outcomes that matter for children and families. Setting clear goals and tracking progress through reliable data will lay the groundwork for effective implementation once the Task Force’s recommendations move into action. In doing so, the Task Force can also surface data challenges — such as gaps between data systems or inaccurate data — that must be resolved to support effective, data-informed decision-making. For example, the Texas Public Education Information Resource (TPEIR) shows that only 14 school districts in the state are engaged in pre-k partnerships with private child care providers. At the same time, the Texas Workforce Commission reported the agency supported 49 school districts establishing pre-k partnerships.
6. Act Quickly While Keeping an Eye on the Future
With a long waitlist for Child Care Scholarships and persistent gaps in kindergarten readiness across Texas, the Governor’s Task Force needs to outline recommendations for urgent action while articulating a clear long-term vision for early childhood governance reform. Outlining concrete next steps for lawmakers and agency leaders can help address immediate challenges facing children, families, and providers while laying the groundwork for more coordinated, effective long-term solutions. A phased implementation plan with clear benchmarks ensures progress is tracked and sustained over time. In addition, existing initiatives such as the Texas Early Learning Council can play a crucial role in monitoring progress and guiding future improvements as the state’s vision evolves to meet future needs.
What’s Next?
This conversation comes at a pivotal time. In the spring, the Texas legislature advanced several major early childhood initiatives. As mentioned previously, HB 117 establishes a task force on early childhood governance. The Steering Committee will align goals and metrics across agencies, report on progress, and submit legislative and budget recommendations by December 1, 2026, before the Task Force ends in 2027.
In addition, HB 3963 creates an early childhood integrated data system, HB 4903 launches a quad-agency effort to streamline child care regulations, and HB 2310 directs agencies to develop a strategic plan for preschoolers with disabilities. Together, these measures provide an opportunity to answer critical questions, hear from Texas families about their needs, better understand the funding gaps in both pre-k and child care settings, and build a more effective early learning system to meet the needs of Texas families.
Understanding what strong governance looks like—and how to achieve it—is more critical than ever. Governance decisions shape how families access early learning, ensure accountability across programs, and influence the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of early learning in Texas. As the Task Force and agencies begin their work, it will be essential to consider how system improvements meet the needs of all children, including those with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners, so that policies and programs effectively support the development and learning of all young children. By focusing on what children and families need most, Texas can build a stronger foundation for the next generation.
Full video of the discussion with Elliot:
