Howard A. Morrison

Early Childhood Technical Assistance Specialist, SRI Education

Howard Morrison specializes in early childhood education on a variety of topics, including interagency data integration and data use, data governance, data sharing agreements, school readiness, transitions, public–private partnerships, stakeholder engagement and state systems.

At SRI, Morrison is a technical assistance specialist for the National Technical Assistance Center for Preschool Development Grants Birth Through Five (PDG B-5). Through the center, he supports Regions 9 and 10 and leads the data systems and transition activities. Morrison also contributes to the Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSy), serving as a liaison to states and leading the data linking and integration workgroup. He also leads the administrative data work for the Arkansas Implementation of Suspension and Expulsion Reduction Policies (ARISE) project, a research–policy partnership with the Arkansas Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education that aims to support the implementation of suspension and expulsion reduction policies.

In addition, for a project with the Children’s Cabinet in Nevada, Morrison leads two workgroups focused on strengthening the state’s early childhood education (ECE) workforce. He is identifying promising strategies to improve ECE workforce data and working conditions and support and facilitating discussions and decision-making among workgroup members. The group’s decisions will inform a statewide framework for supporting the ECE workforce, which will include a phased approach to implementing selected improvement strategies.

Previously, for a project with the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation, Morrison led the development of three training modules on early childhood systems building. The modules focused on developing community partnerships and engaging stakeholders, creating a community plan, implementing the community plan and sustaining partnerships. Additionally, Morrison supported North Dakota’s efforts with its early childhood integrated data system (ECIDS) by developing use cases and a stakeholder engagement plan. He also provided stakeholder engagement support to states and facilitated a national community of practice on using data to respond to emerging needs for the ECDataWorks project.

Before joining SRI, Morrison served for more than 11 years as the statewide coordinator in the Early Childhood Education Division of the Texas Education Agency. In that role he led the early learning work in the statewide longitudinal data system grant and was program manager for the Early Childhood Data System (ECDS) and the ECDataWorks project. He led development and execution of the ECDS application, including development of comprehensive data standards, rule and validation requirements, data submission requirements, report content and use and training for regional and local program staff. He championed efforts to create the Texas Ready Communities, Ready Schools, and Ready Students analytic tool to generate custom reports and graphics for the ECDS.

Morrison also served as the program manager for the high-quality prekindergarten grant, Texas School Ready program and kindergarten entry assessment, and he led statewide implementation of full-day, high-quality prekindergarten. These initiatives focused on ensuring programs were implementing a high-quality curriculum, a progress monitoring tool, and a family engagement plan, and ensuring teachers received quality professional development and coaching.

Morrison holds a BA in business administration from St. Andrews University.