Gov. Dannel P. Malloy named Myra Jones-Taylor the executive director of the new Office of Early Childhood Tuesday during an appearance on WNPR’s Where We Live radio talk show.

Jones-Taylor was tapped by Malloy in May 2012 to create a plan for what many early childhood adovates call a fractured delivery system that spends over $200 million a year providing daycare, preschool and other early childcare services throughout the state.

Jones-Taylor — who lives in New Haven, is on the city’s school board and has a PhD from Yale in American studies and anthropology — reported the solution to moving the system forward is to move the various programs housed in five different state agencies under one office.

“Connecticut currently has a ‘non-system’ for early childhood. There is no central agency that is held accountable for improved outcomes for young children in the state. Consequently, Connecticut lacks a unified vision for early childhood policy and service delivery,” Jones Taylor wrote in her final report for the governor and legislature.

The office was created yesterday by the democratic governor following legislative innaction on a bill that would have done so.

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Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

jrabe@ctmirror.org

Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

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