Episode 58 - Celebrating 18 Years of DECAL

It’s a year of major milestones here at the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning…Quality Rated celebrates a Decade of Stars now marking ten years as Georgia’s Quality Rating and Improvement System…and this school year Georgia’s Pre-K Program celebrates 30 years of high quality early childhood education for the state’s four and five year olds.  But sandwiched in between all that is the 18th birthday of our agency as a whole.  Prior to 2004, the idea of a state department strictly for children under the age of five was unheard of…and yet it happened officially on October 1, 2004 with Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.  Joining us to talk about DECAL’s 18th birthday is Ben Scafidi, a former education policy advisor to Governor Sonny Perdue. Today Ben is a professor of economics and director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University.