Education officials and political leaders in Rhode Island on Monday celebrated a $50 million federal award that will be used to help improve early childhood education programs.
State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist was joined by Gov. Lincoln Chafee at a Providence pre-school to highlight the Early Learning Challenge grant.
Rhode Island is one of nine states to win the grant in the Obama administration's education funding competition. The awards were announced last week.
At an event at Ready to Learn Providence attended by the state's congressional delegation and Rhode Island General Assembly leadership, Gist said the state's grant application was approved in full because of "tremendous teamwork" in developing early-childhood initiatives.
The state said in its application that the money would be used for professional development, creation of a kindergarten entry assessment and development of stronger "early learning" standards, among other initiatives.
Rhode Island last year was one of 12 states to win first-round "Race to the Top" funding, which was allocated for programs focusing on kindergarten through 12th grade. Gist's office says only five other states won awards in both rounds of the competition.
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