Hub Overview

The Colorado Lab’s Evidence-Building Hubs help the state to align evidence-building investments, reduce evaluation burden and duplication, grow the evidence base, and identify opportunities for ongoing learning and sustainability. The Colorado Lab has served as an Evidence-Building Hub for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) since its inception in 2022.

In 2023, CDEC received a $3.85 million grant from the Early Educator Investment Collaborative (EEIC) to support planning and implementation activities towards long-term, sustained increases to compensation (salaries and benefits) of early care and education (ECE) professionals. In October 2024, CDEC contracted with Colorado Lab to serve as the Early Childhood Workforce Evidence-Building Hub for this grant. Initial activities include:

• producing an evidence-building agenda with prioritized needs over the life of the grant;
• identifying and supporting the selected vendors to produce relevant and actionable analyses; and
• coordinating with CDEC’s partner engagement vendor to identify evidence-building priorities and disseminate evidence to inform implementation of CDEC’s Comprehensive Early Childhood Workforce Plan.

Ongoing Hub work includes:

• strategic visioning for evidence building within CDEC’s Workforce Division and intersecting ECE workforce efforts in Colorado;
• coordination and oversight of evidence-building efforts resourced by the Hub;
• consultation on evidence-building efforts resourced by other funding streams, upon request by CDEC or external evaluators; and
• dissemination of findings with CDEC and key community partners.

The Hub will produce an annual strategy report for evidence building that will provide updated priorities and recommendations for CDEC, and an annual evidence report will summarize progress and findings for CDEC.