Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application.

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EXAMPLE APPLICATION


Q1. What is the problem you are taking on? (25 words)
Low-income children hear 30 million fewer words than wealthier peers by their fourth
birthdays. This generates an achievement gap, disadvantaging children in school and
life.


Q2. Why did your city choose this problem? Describe the problems breadth and
depth and its significance to your city, and include specific data points as
appropriate. (125 words)
This is a national problem: low-income children hear one-third as many words as
wealthier peers putting them behind at the start of kindergarten and creating a
widening gap over their school years. It is particularly relevant for Providence: 38% of
babies belong to families in the lowest 20% of income nationally; that child poverty rate
is the third highest of all U.S. cities.

This translates into a serious problem: only a third of our kindergarteners are proficient
on national literacy benchmarks. We expect to offer services to all approximately 3,000
qualifying families in our city creating deep impact for this specific population. Tackling
this problem will let us address the injustice faced by children born to low-income
parents in the wrong neighborhoods.


Q3. All new ideas stand on the shoulders of ideas that came before. Tell us what
you know about prior efforts (programs, research, initiatives) to address this
problem. What actions, if any, has your city taken on this issue? What about other
cities? Tell us what elements youll reuse and what youll improve. (200 words)
Our idea, Providence Talks, addresses the problem first researched and documented by
Betty Hart and Todd Risley in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of
Young American Children in 1995 that low-income children have a word gap of 30
million words by age four, which starts them off in school already behind.

It also leverages new technology created by the LENA Research Foundation, which
allows caregivers to record and analyze a childs auditory environment. We are
encouraged by early data from studies involving the LENA technology which
demonstrate that access to information alone is powerful: one study revealed that
parents with regular access to data on their household auditory environment increased
the number of words spoken to their children by 55% on average.

Educators and policy makers have known about this problem for nearly two decades,
and have largely sought to address it through early education efforts, which enroll
children in school before kindergarten. While we support early education, we believe that
we can build on research, technology, and our existing programs that target high needs
children and families including universal newborn screening and evidence-based
home visitation programs to help families put children on track from their earliest
days.


Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 2

Q4. Tell us the first sentence youd like to read in an article about the launch of
your project in the local paper. (30 words)
Two times as many Providence children will start kindergarten ready to learn, thanks to
Mayor Taveras bold new early literacy and vocabulary program, Providence Talks.


Q5. Describe your idea and how it actually works on the ground. (250 words)
Providence Talks is a free, confidential, and completely voluntary early intervention
program. It will use a combination of new technology and existing service networks to
close the word gap between low- and high-income children. The program relies on an
innovative device that records the home auditory environment and software that
analyzes these recordings to describe, without regard to content, the number of words
spoken and the number of conversational turns between child and adult.

Potential families will be identified through screening programs, which assess all
newborn children in Providence for a variety of developmental risk factors. The goal is to
scale up over the course of four years, and have 2,850 participating families by 2018.
Home visitation agencies will train families on how to use the device and families will
bring the device into their home and record all conversations and sounds in 16-hour
blocks. These recordings will be processed, purged of content to protect privacy, and
used to generate a report. Once the reports are ready, home visitors will go to the
familys home for coaching sessions, during which families will receive detailed
information on their homes auditory environment, strategies and resources for improving
it, incentives for meeting or exceeding specific word-count and conversational goals, and
will set goals for the following period.

Providers will be chosen through a competitive process from among the many service
organizations already engaged in home visitation programs throughout Providence.


Q6. Explain specifically what elements are new and innovative about your idea.
(75 words)
The proposed program is a fresh idea that has never before been tried by any
government. Innovative elements include:
New Technology: LENAs powerful technology enables a new approach and
has not previously been used in a city program.
New Approach: its different from typical early education policies, providing data
on word counts and conversational turns.
New Delivery Method: home visitors empower caretakers to make changes in
their auditory environment, providing strategies and resources.




Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 3

Q7. Is your solution primarily (a) solving an issue-specific problem, or (b)
improving the way city government does work? (choose only one)
Issue Specific The way government works
Economic Development
Education
Environment/Sustainability
Housing
Public Health/Healthcare
Public Safety
Social Services
Mobility/Infrastructure
Other ______________________
Improve customer service
Create significant government
efficiencies
Increase public engagement
Other _______________________


Q8. Describe the citizens or stakeholders who this idea will impact most. How will
your idea improve their life, the way they work, and/or their experience with the
city? (100 words)
Providence Talks will impact our highest needs families, those that are most likely to
struggle to prepare children for school. It will give families tools they need to support
early vocabulary development and give our youngest citizens a boost that puts them on
the right track.

This unprecedented investment will put more children on track to enter kindergarten
prepared, eventually graduating from high school on time, ready to succeed in college
and careers. Nobel Prize winning University of Chicago Economist J ames Heckman has
demonstrated that lifetime returns on early childhood investment can exceed $16 for
every dollar invested.


Q9. Talk to some actual citizens and/or stakeholders from other areas of
government about your idea. What are three of the most interesting responses?
What stands out as exciting and/or most impactful to people? (30 words each)
The benefits are excellent it will teach me how to expand the vocabulary of my baby
and give me the tools to help her.
-- Shirley, Spanish-speaking mother of participant

I always hear news about our failing education system. Its great to see the city taking
action a project that could change the future for kids.
-- Mark, citizen

Were already investing with high-needs families. Ive often wished we had tools to
address early-childhood academic readiness. This could be the key weve been looking
for.
-- J oanne, social worker



Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 4

10. What two to four key metrics will you track throughout this project, starting
now and continuing through and beyond launch? How will you collect this
information? (100 words)
We will track:
On an hourly, daily, and monthly basis, the number of adult words,
conversational turns, and other key metrics in participating childrens auditory
environments. (Home visitation agencies will track.)
Percentage of kindergarten students testing proficient on national literacy
benchmarks. (Department of education currently tracks.)
Percentage of students testing proficient on standardized assessments, grades
3-11. (Department of education currently tracks.)

In addition, we are collaborating with Brown University to develop a program to
document the impact and statistical validity of Providence Talks.

Q11. Provide the name and title of the city employee who will serve as project
lead. Describe their position within your citys government. (30 words)
The project leader will be Toby Shepherd, the Director of Policy for the City of
Providence (and a former classroom teacher, elected school board member, and district
administrator).

Q12. List the team that will implement this idea within your city government. What
value does each member bring? (150 words)
Mayor Angel Taveras will bring his leadership and passion for innovation in
education. He will play a key role in marshalling the resources needed for the
project, bringing partners together to focus on a single goal, and building
enthusiasm for the project in Providence and beyond.
The Mayors Deputy Chief of Staff will provide day-to-day executive leadership
on the project.
The Mayors legal team will support the effort, with a particular focus on privacy
and confidentiality, and contract negotiation and execution.
The senior advisor on education will play a key content role for the project,
bringing to the table years of experience in early childhood education.
In addition, we will hire two new employees one to manage the day-to-day
operations of the program and one to serve as a project director. This will provide
the project with the full-time, constant leadership it needs.


Q13. Who are all the people that need to say yes in order to bring your idea to life?
(50 words)
Families will need to agree to enroll in the project and continue participating
Home visitation providers will need to respond to the RFP with viable
proposals and support implementation weve spoken with agencies and they
have expressed interest
The Mayor will approve the program


Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 5


Q14. Thinking about the phases from idea to implementation, what parts of your
idea might you prototype? What early opportunities do you see for testing aspects
of your strategy that can help inform your overall idea? (100 words)
Before we launch a formal pilot, we will conduct tests and run prototypes of home visits
with families. Our plan, if we advance, is to find approximately ten families to try the
LENA devices and receive coaching sessions. Families will provide feedback, including
on the program pitch, quality of the instruction received, use of the device, format of the
reports, most and least successful elements, and ideas for improvement.

We anticipate these tests will help us to fine-tune the feedback report, program pitch,
develop a curriculum for the orientation session, and gauge the potential impact of
Providence Talks.


Q15. Describe your implementation plan and its key phases. Specifically note
when you will (a) begin implementation (assuming you receive a prize in fall 2014),
(b) fully launch, (c) record your first measurable outcome or impact, and (d)
achieve full scale. (200 words)
(a) We will commence implementation within three months of receiving the prize (winter
2014). Commencing implementation will require some important foundation-laying work.
This will include working with LENA, home visitation providers, and an evaluation partner
to plan for a pilot and full launch, beginning to prepare an RFP for additional home
visitation, and working on the project curriculum.
(b) We plan to start a pilot within nine months of receiving word that we have been
awarded a prize (summer 2015). That pilot will help us fine tune our RFP. We will
formally launch when we release an RFP for citywide home visitation services (end
2015).
(c) We will record our first outcomes shortly after engaging families, as caretakers begin
to measurably change the auditory environment for children. We believe we will see our
first measurable impact when children we work with arrive in kindergarten better
prepared for school. All will be documented by an independent evaluator.
(d) We believe we can achieve our goal of full scale, which entails offering Providence
Talks services to ALL eligible families in the city, within three to four years of receiving
the grant (fall 2017 fall 2018).

Q16. How will you engage organizations, talent, and/or resources outside of the
municipal government both in developing your solution, as well as during
implementation? Who would you like to engage and how would they add value to
your project? (100 words)
We plan to engage individuals and organizations, including:
LENA, which will enable us to record and analyze childrens auditory
environments.

Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 6

Early care providers, such as Childrens Friend, Family Service of Rhode Island,
and Meeting Street organizations that have more than 350 years of collective
history and expertise in supporting Rhode Islands families.
Brown University, which will document Providence Talks impact and statistical
validity.
Organizations in Providence, such as museums, libraries, and the zoo, which will
offer literacy-focused opportunities to participating families.
An advisory board of experts in early childhood education and social services
programs.

Q17. At this stage, what is your best estimate of the cost to both implement and
sustain your idea? Provide two costs with a brief explanation: one for all the work
that will lead up to launch, and another for the projects year-to-year cost. (50
words each)

Leading Up to Launch
$500,000
Prior to issuing the RFP, the city will need to invest money developing the curriculum,
purchasing devices and LENA software, and paying home visitors that are involved in
the pilot (the largest early cost). We will also need to provide salary for the new staff
hires.

Year-to-Year
$2,500,000
Achieving scale will require serving nearly 3,000 families per year. The most significant
cost will rest in the home visitation services (so may vary depending on RFP responses).
In addition, there will be yearly LENA technology investments, and expenses for the
evaluation.


Q18. What are the three largest risk factors that could derail your idea and why?
What is your plan to mitigate those risks? (200 words)
Confidentiality of clients: our ability to protect the confidentiality of our clients
home recordings is the greatest risk.
To mitigate this risk, we are working with partners to build several process
safeguards into our plan, including, potentially, an end-of-day delete function so
that caretakers can delete a days recording at their discretion for any reason, as
well as an auto-delete function, so that no audio trail exists after a data report
has been generated. As we progress in the process, we will continue to work with
LENA to further protect the data.

Confidentiality of non-participants: our ability to protect the privacy of other
people whose conversations may be recorded is also a risk.
We are preparing waivers and notifications to protect all individuals who might be
affected. Prior to launch, our law department is conducting a comprehensive
review of legal exposure and drafting MOUs, parental waivers, and other
protective documents.


Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 7

Proving Success: our ability to show the world that any gains achieved in
participating children is attributable to the intervention.
We are working with Brown University to design a rigorous, scientific randomized
control trial that will determine statistically significant results and link them to
Providence Talks.


Q19. How universal is the problem youre addressing? Make your best effort to
quantify the effects of this problem locally, nationally, and globally. (100 words)
The problem we are addressing affects at least 16.4 million children across America who
live in poverty. All cities in the U.S. have at-risk children arriving at school already behind
the curve.

Drs. Hart and Risley found that the average child in a welfare family hears 13 million
words in their first four years, compared to 45 million words for a child in a professional
family. This leads to a vocabulary gap which does not disappear over time. The
researchers found that measures of literacy at age three predicted performance in fourth
grade on vocabulary, language development, and reading comprehension.


Q20. Share your idea with city employees from three different cities (feel free to
reach out to any city that might benefit from it not just ones that are eligible to
apply for the Mayors Challenge). How do they respond? Describe the need they
see and any challenges they anticipate. (30 words each)
Preparing our disadvantaged kids for school is something we all struggle with. If youre
successful, we would be beating down your door to learn from your example.
-- City X, Date

We dont have an extensive home visitation network in our city, but if you make the
case, I could easily see providers moving in or springing up.
-- City Y, Date

What excites me about this program is how powerful a change it promises. Were
talking about affecting a lifetime of educational performance with a simple early
intervention.
-- City Z, Date


Q21. Make the case for why your idea, if successful, will be able to spread to other
cities. (100 words)
This problem affects cities and communities across the U.S. If successful, the
Providence Talks methodology could help cities intervene early to help young citizens
get ready to excel in elementary school overcoming an obstacle that hurts the
neediest children and that leads to many other problems for cities as children grow up.
This program is all about prevention, catching a child early to send them down the right
path.

Not only is there great need for this intervention, but the technology that facilitates the
program is accessible and the program is eminently possible to implement locally.

Note: Information provided herein is for illustrative purposes only. Not a real application. 8

Summary: Imagine you are presenting your idea to the selection committee. How
would you summarize your idea in a way that gets people excited for
implementation? Make sure you clearly articulate the problem, the solution, and
how your idea will change your city for the better. (250 words)
Low-income children hear 30 million fewer words than their better-off peers by their
fourth birthdays. This deficit creates an achievement gap which puts children years
behind when they start kindergarten and worsens over time.

This is a national problem and one that directly affects the 38% of Providence babies
born into families in the lowest 20% of income nationally. It translates into chronic under-
achievement for our elementary school students and a 30-plus-percent dropout rate for
our high school students.

While the problem has been extensively studied and documented by academic
researchers and confirmed by anecdotal evidence from educators, social workers,
parents, and policy makers it has never been directly addressed by a city.

Providence Talks will, for the first time, allow us to leverage simple but powerful
technology that gives us the information we need to tackle this problem head on. We will
be able to track how many words high-needs children are hearing and coach families
and caregivers in specific ways they can do better. This sounds simple, but its
potentially the most powerful early education technique ever applied in an American city.

Addressing the injustice faced by children born to low-income parents in the wrong
neighborhoods will help individual students and families, and will also improve life in
Providence overall.